


Blue Roses Beneath Broken Mirrors

by AvaCelt



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Beauty and the Beast Fusion, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Prostitution, Alternate Universe - Sugar Daddy, Beauty and the Beast Elements, F/M, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, hisoka's bisexual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-16 13:59:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 45,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9275015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaCelt/pseuds/AvaCelt
Summary: Power is so beautiful that Hisoka wants nothing more than to be on an arm strong enough to bring the world to its knees, but tender enough to stroke him to climax and play with his hair after a long night. Biscuit Krueger never shows her face, but she's the most fearsome mercenary Yorknew has ever known, and she's determined to stay that way. When a bid for affections results in an 8.2 billion jenny buyout, a man with no soul offers up his services to a woman with no face. It's a game for both of them, and it's one neither are willing to lose. [Hisoka/true!form!Bisky, Beauty & the Beast/Prostitution Fusion AU]





	1. Gods & Monsters

**Author's Note:**

> Each chapter will be named after the song I had on repeat while writing it.
> 
> [Fanart](http://list-me-the-reasons-why.tumblr.com/post/157170208932/inspired-by-ch7-of-avas-hxh-fic-blue-roses) for [Chapter 7](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9275015/chapters/21859328). Thank you, [Ren](http://list-me-the-reasons-why.tumblr.com/)!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first is the title of a Lana del Rey track.

The colors were what touched Hisoka more than anything else.

He couldn’t help it, and so everything in shades of blue, magenta, yellow, and the occasional fuchsia, managed to steal a kiss from him. He had a habit of embracing everything. He hadn't grown up touch-starved or anything, but skin and sounds bedecked in colors was something of importance to him. He wanted to blame his less than tender upbringing, but he had a hunch that his tragic backstory had nothing to do with the kind of behaviors he took part in.

The sharp tang of whiskey soothed his palate and he savored its taste almost as much as he savored the money that had reached his bank account earlier in the day. His heart warmed. He'd always been a fool for the colors. The old man who squeezed his crotch and rambled into his ear had a blue and green pinstriped tie on, and so he examined the fabric and paid attention to the way the designs complimented the color scheme.

The colors were what touched Hisoka more than anything else. The melody of their existence drifted in and out of his mind, lit a kind of warmth in his heart that he couldn't put into words. Coupled with the whiskey and the sense of knowing that tomorrow would be a glorious sleep-in day, everything seemed all the more exquisite. Hisoka had always been a loving soul. He thought himself shy, but his date thought otherwise, and so did his pseudo-colleagues. The old man poured him another tumbler, and he smiled his slick smile. He pushed his thoughts about tomorrow to the back of his mind. Tomorrow was tomorrow; tonight, he still had to show the 74 year old steel magnate that he was worth every penny of his discretionary income.

But then he made the mistake of going upstairs to the terrace for a cigar.

The colors were still as vibrant as they were in the lower levels of the dining club. Lionel, his date, was somewhere downstairs chatting up a rival, so Hisoka had to make himself scarce for about an hour. On the terrace, he mentally counted all of the brothers, sisters, and extended family members of Yorknew's underground elite. Lionel was a steel magnate, but his rival sold toothbrushes, yet they were both fighting for the same land development contract somewhere in Zaban City. Hisoka lazily puffed on his cigar. He only knew what he could manage to gather after sex or after a long night of making boring people feel special. Sugaring was a blast, but he also sold information, and if there was one thing Hisoka knew how to do better than eating pussy or sucking cock, it was how to properly glean enough information to fund his latest adventure.

He was, after all, a colorful man after the most colorful things in the world. And color cost money. Power cost money. Hisoka didn't much like power, but power in the sugaring world got you more potentials, let your name and your time becomes luxuries few could afford. Hisoka didn't get up for a date unless there was an advance of two million jenny in his bank account, and more after the date, depending on the kind of income the potential had to offer. The deck of cards in his sleeve, lined with poison and sharp as knives, spoke to his dedication. If Lionel didn't pay, he'd be dead.

And he wouldn't be Hisoka's first, either. He chuckled, taking in the colors of Yorknew's crowded streets and shining skyscrapers. Alas, he was still a romantic at heart, looking for a ruler to keep him close and comfortable. Unfortunately, Lionel and his breed wanted someone to whip them on the third date, and then go to dining clubs and work parties when their schedules were packed. Hisoka sighed dramatically and smoked earnestly.

Hisoka eyed the others who had come up to the terrace for a breather. The sharks were still finding new ways to entertain their dates, thumbing cigars previously soaked in liquid opium and kept in a lacquered traveling humidors, kissing their dates tenderly upon their cheeks, tapping their phones to call for their cars while they all marveled the view from fifty stories above.

The low flame lighting a cylindrical beauty sent a beam of happiness through his chest. He fucking loved cigars. He was quite sad his own was burning down rather fast, but he didn't fret. There was still a smile on his face and laughter erupted from underneath his chest when the sounds of trumpets filtered through the concrete and into the open night. His heart still hurt, because he was twenty-five and he'd been doing this for so long but had yet to find someone who'd make him a trophy husband. So much money in his bank account, all the pressed suits and leather whips in his closet, all of the brand name shoes and colorful lipsticks, and still.

And still.

They met at the center of the world. At least, the center of Hisoka Morow's world.

He spied a black hat, a black suit, a white shirt, and maybe more black. Perhaps, he thought, not all is black, but merely presented as so because of the night sky. Yet the night sky was bursting with colors, the time was past midnight, the dates were still laughing, and the alcohol didn't stop pouring. Soon, Lionel would text him to come downstairs and ride his cock in one of the private rooms before Hisoka went back to his penthouse in his absurdly expensive car.

Hisoka was very tall; the one in the black was not.

There was something soft wafting up from down below in the darkened alley between the dining club and the office building next to it. It was a lone violin suppressing the deafening throes of the orchestra below his feet. He glanced over the edge of the terrace to catch a glimpse of the musician. He knew he couldn't see shit. He wasn't _supposed_ to see shit. He was fifty stories up, high on cigar smoke, and slightly buzzed from good whiskey.

The one in black slips away quickly and quietly before disappearing through the haze in Hisoka's mind.

“I'm behind you, Morow.”

Hisoka recognized the voice, but didn't turn around until he'd fully finished his cigar. The black suit held out a glass of ice water after he stubbed out the end of the cylinder. He drank deeply and it took another ten minutes for him to clear his bind and tighten his blood before he realized the voice belonged to Machi.

He didn't let his unease crinkle his makeup, and definitely not the eyeliner that took an hour to apply.

“Machi, what a surprise.”

“Sober now, Morow?” Machi drawled, her pink hair tied in a loose ponytail and hidden underneath the top hat.

“As sober as one can be on a boring date, Machi,” he replied earnestly. He put the empty glass on the ledge. He thought about pushing it over the edge.

She handed him an Ibuprofen that he dry swallowed. A headache was lingering on the edges of his mind, but he'd suppressed it long enough with the whiskey and the cigar. Now he had to level up his professionalism. Machi was neither friend nor enemy, but she was still Machi.

And Machi was dangerous.

“Has Mr. Lucilfer finally succumbed?” He teased, white teeth glistening in the plethora of colors produced by the dining club's terrace lights.

Machi twitched but didn't swallow the bait. “Chrollo didn't send me. No, he doesn't want to date. Yes, he's found someone he wants to chase.”

Hisoka frowned, hatred bubbling in his heart like it always did when the powerful sought someone besides him. But then again, Chrollo was a whore turned thief himself, who then created the most powerful network of thieves and fences Yorknew and the rest of the world had ever seen. If there was ever a band of deplorables worse than the Phantom Troupe, it had to be the mercenary crew, the Hunter Association. Yet, Hunters hardly ever dipped into the sugar bowl because state-regulated brothels catered to them for free while Hisoka and his breed had to actively fish for sharks in the cold sea.

And Chrollo Lucilfer. He could have easily become a Hunter, ruled both bands of awful people at the same time, but he loved his thieves guild like they were his children. He loved Machi like a sister, and so whenever Hisoka tried to catch him unaware at a theater or library, she appeared out of thin air with a needle ready to pierce his Adam's apple and kill him dead.

But as far as he was concerned, the dining club only hosted the more business-oriented of the underground. He hadn't seen any thieves. Rapists, hitmen, and embezzlers, sure, but no fences who dealt in antiques and thieves who stole eyes right out of a living man's head.

“Then what do you want?” His voice dropped an octave and his face became grim. Machi was beautiful. She was powerful. Very many times, he'd offered to go out on dates with her because he knew she'd tie him up and beat him until he came. But she didn't want him. She didn't feel an inkling of desire for his body, his words, or even his smile, and that made him hate her more than anything else.

“We have a new member in the guild, a boy named Kalluto.” Machi sighed and crossed her arms across her chest before softening her stance. “He's a former assassin, and rumor has it, he's a Zoldyck. Phinks doesn't trust him or want him anywhere near Chrollo, but Feitan and Cortopi think he's fine. Next week, the east side brothels are holding a charity auction to fund a new medical center for the streetwalkers. Kalluto's supposed to steal all the cash the buyers put up for their dates. I want you there as an auction good to stop him and provide a buffer for myself and Shalnark, so we can assess if he's from the Zoldyck line. If you win, you can take the money and his life. If he wins, evade him long enough to escape. If you're up for the job, it's six million jenny within the hour, and twelve more if you evade him in battle and escape with your life.”

Machi doesn't sugarcoat it, doesn't care that Hisoka's working right now, and certainly doesn't have any qualms with sobering him up when he wants to be less than sober when sucking Lionel's dick later. But Machi is Machi, and Hisoka's stripped, fucked, and killed ever since he was nineteen, and he knows the value of the Phantom Troupe putting in a good word for him out in the underground network of vile people and their even viler careers.

Yet, at the same time, he's known Illumi since the assassin had killed one of his dates and three other men after they'd gangraped Hisoka and left him to die in a dumpster fifty-three miles from where he'd met his date for dinner. Hisoka hadn't ordered the hit. It just so happened that the date and his friends had also done the same thing to another man, but that man came from a family of corporate warlords, and it wasn't difficult to hire a Zoldyck when there was that much money in the coffers. Hisoka's near-death experience was confirmation for Illumi that his date and those men were the actual targets and not bluffs produced by the perpetrators. Illumi hadn't saved him or anything. Hisoka had crawled out of the dumpster and dragged himself to the nearest hospital on foot, bleeding, dying, and filled with a kind of rage that made him all the more dangerous. Illumi had found him in the hospital, hooked up to wires and breathing through a tube, in order to confirm that he'd actually been victimized. To this day, Hisoka didn't know if the assassin had felt bad or obligated. After the men had been killed, Illumi had told him he was their killer. And they'd become friends. Sort of.

Either way, that's how he knew Kalluto was indeed a Zoldyck, and that the fifteen year old wasn't the only Zoldyck on the run. He had a sixteen year old older sister who was trans and on the top of the Zoldyck hitlist for never having trained as an assassin and for shaming the family name. He also had an older brother, Killua, who'd started his own faction of mercenaries apart from the Hunter Association and was rumored to be harboring their sister. The Zoldyck family chronicles were a favorite of Yorknew's whores, not only because they'd never purchased services from a brothel or dipped into the sugar bowl, but also because they'd killed enough of the elite that everyone in the underground knew their game well enough to steer clear of their path.

Hisoka preferred colors and vibrancy; not black and silence. But what he despised the most was an unfulfilled curiosity. Sure, he could tell Machi here and now that Kalluto was a Zoldyck, that he'd run away from home to start a life apart from his insane family, and that he was actively being hunted by the matriarch, Kikyo Zoldyck, but Machi had pissed him off. Chrollo had probably fallen in love with some being that would never love him back, Hisoka was in full control of his senses, and Machi and Shalnark didn't deserve a night off.

Perturbed. Hisoka was just a tad bit perturbed.

“I won't kill him, and he won't be taking the money, but I'll play your game.”

Machi made the necessary taps on her phone, and a short buzz later, Hisoka checked his bank account to see six million jenny added to his checking account.

Hisoka followed Machi down the stairs to the balcony within the dining club. She disappeared, her black suit and top hat obscured in the vibrating throng of house dancers and revelers. He skimmed the crowd for Lionel's fedora, and saw him shaking hands with the owner of the toothbrush empire. A shock of color and music assaulted his senses, taking him back to the subaltern of his mind, detaching him from his body, freeing his soul. He blinked, straightened his clothes, and seductively approached the man who'd already put a hefty sum in his account this morning, and promised to put more after the night was over.

He rode Lionel in his limousine with his hands tied behind his back. While the old man pinched his nipples and left ugly bruises on his skin, Hisoka thought about all possibilities he'd be exposed to once he put his name up as an auction good. He knew enough of the east side madams that getting his name into the auctioning list wouldn't be difficult, but the potentials. This auction would have to be a private one, because the mobs wouldn't allow it to take place if it wasn't. Hisoka wouldn't know what any of the potentials looked like, if they were in it to compensate a person for going out with them, if the auction clause allowed them more than one date, if the goods were required to sleep with their buyers, and so on and so forth. However, one thing Hisoka _did_ know was that property in Yorknew was the most expensive on their continent, so something like building a medical center catered towards prostitutes who wanted their names out of the papers would cost a pretty penny. He felt Lionel come inside of him and then felt himself being pushed off before his face was slammed against the window and Lionel shoved his flaccid dick up his ass again. Hisoka jerked with the motions, made loud noises, purred, screamed, and moaned, all the while making arrangements in his head about how he wanted the auction to go down in his favor.

He thought about Machi's thick curves, his mouth sucking one of her pretty, pink nipples, two fingers crooked inside of her and scissoring her gently to orgasm. He imagined Chrollo quivering above him, his lips sucking a dark bruise onto Hisoka's shoulder, a hand wrapped tenderly around his cock while Hisoka continued to lap at Machi's nipple. He wished he could have both, and all of the others he'd encountered over his life. Power. Power was so beautiful, and he wanted nothing more than to be on an arm strong enough to bring the world to its knees, but tender enough to stroke him to climax and play with his hair after a long night.

Lionel grunted and slipped out. Hisoka let him get in another few licks before nudging the old man into undoing the tie's knot. It took him ten minutes to clean up, get dressed, and kiss Lionel on the cheek for providing him with an awful night, but tailoring it just right that Lionel's ego received a proper stroke. Lionel gurgled, hastily sent the agreed amount to Hisoka's account, and told him to be ready for an adventure next week. Hisoka giggled, called him 'daddy' in his deepest voice, and then disappeared.

He entered the penthouse, put the security code in, and walked into the shower with his clothes on. He stripped the soggy articles one by one, imagining them as tokens of his bravery and strength. He gripped Lionel's tie in one hand while the scalding water washed the remaining traces of semen from his body before he grabbed a bottle of liquid soap and poured some into a rag. He started scrubbing the remainder of the filth from his body, all the while remembering that there was shit worse than this, and that if Lionel _ever_ shirked on an agreed allowance, he was as good as dead, along with his wife, kids, grandkids, and that damned parrot.

He didn't bother putting on clothes after he was done. He took in the sight of the city that mesmerized him. Soon, though, he'd have to pack up and leave for other cities because power wasn't localized. It was everywhere. There were kings, queens, and demons that had power that Hisoka wanted to covet in between his legs. He had kings to succumb to, queens to bow down to, monsters to make his.

And they'd be his. They would _all_ be his. The auction would have some of the most beautiful people of the underground putting their services up for a charitable reason. Hisoka would even do Kalluto a favor and give up Maki and Shalnark so the young assassin could set a trap that would solidify his position in the Phantom Troupe forever.

And Hisoka? He'd wear his best clothes, put on his best smile, and paint his face with his most expensive makeup. He plopped a stick of gum in his mouth and happily began to chew. He wondered what kind of beautiful monsters he'd meet, and he wondered, deep down, if any of them would be good enough for his love.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a dark!fic through and through. If you're uncomfortable with sexual themes and mentions of drug use and sexual violence, please do NOT attempt embarking on this trip. This is a work of FICTION. I shouldn't have to say this in the year of our lord 2017, but some of y'all stay playin games. Please don't read this if you know you can't stomach the tags!


	2. The Lean and Hungry Type

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which auctions are held, hits are assigned, and a baby spider makes his debut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is a lyric from Hall & Oates's infamous song, "Maneater."

Biscuit Krueger loved colors and wouldn't have minded telling the lost woman about them. In fact, she was sure the woman would have enjoyed the vibrancy almost as much as she did. She found herself getting up from her seat, but a gentleman soon appeared and offered to show her to her seat before the main show began.

“Kaa-chan, your cigar.” Her son, Wing, proffered a lit cigar and she took it before becoming dead weight in her seat. “Zushi should be home from school now. I'll see you tomorrow.”

She waved him off, watched him leave the hotel restaurant out of the corner of eye. Wing was a good son, a great father. A single father, just like she had been a single mother, and he raised Zushi well. She'd raised _him_ well.

She chuckled to herself and put the cigar in her mouth. Once she finished, she dropped the cigar stub into the glass ashtray. She smoothed the wrinkles on her jacket and collar. As she patted her hair and flexed her gloved fingers, she heard a lone violin began to break through the hullabaloo of the house music.

“Bisky-chama, the auction starts in an hour,” said a lovely voice. “Would you like to look at the preliminary photos before the bidding begins?”

Bisky shook her head and let herself savor the sound of the violin that shouldn't have been able to break through the loud thrum of the restaurant's music. The usher bowed his head and disappeared while Bisky savored the little time she had left before she picked up another lover for however long her fickle heart desired.

At fifty-seven, Bisky thought she deserved whatever treats she could get her hands on.

* * *

 “There are killers in that crowd,” Kalluto deadpanned while Hisoka filed his nails.

“You don't say,” he replied with a blank face.

Kalluto sighed and shoved his paper knives back into his kimono sleeves. “Go home, Hisoka-san. This auction's only being serviced by the most dangerous prostitutes in Yorknew. Most of them have killed before, but the ones bidding have _all_ killed before. That was a condition they had to meet before they were able to apply for a bid.”

Poor Kalluto only knew Hisoka as his oldest brother's petty friend, a neutral who shared lunches and dinners with Illumi throughout the week, but refused to get involved in the Zoldyck family chronicles and ultimately refused to meddle in their business.

If only Kalluto knew how awful Hisoka really was. “I'm being paid by the Troupe to expose your past to them.”

Kalluto didn't seem surprised. “You're meant to hurt me?”

Hisoka shook his head. “Piss you off long enough to have you unleash your true strength so they can go crying to Chrollo about how you didn't tell them you were Zoldyck and, hence, withheld crucial information during your interview process.”

“And what do you get out of selling out your employers, Hisoka-san?”

“A little bit of fun,” Hisoka admitted. “And I don't want your name circulating in the underground as a Zoldyck. They don't know what you look like. Change your name, Kalluto-kun. Put on some different clothes. Maybe take up Yorknew's dresses.”

Kalluto kept his face blank and his paper knives out of sight. “You want me to throw the fight.”

“We both know you could snap my pretty little neck, Kalluto-kun.” Kalluto couldn't, but Hisoka found that it was a necessary lie. Kalluto didn't need to know how many people he'd smothered in their sleep just for insulting his lipstick.

“I don't want to hurt you, Hisoka-san,” the fifteen year old replied earnestly. He recalled that Kalluto was the youngest of the Zoldyck heirs. Running away would have been the most difficult for him, after being constantly clawed after by the matriarch's talons. Hisoka actually felt a little bad for the teenager.

“Then lie until your lies become your truth. Work. Become a Phantom, and one day, take over. You'll never be able to defeat the Zoldyck line unless you become the most hated Zoldyck in the history book.”

While Kalluto considered the events that led up his departure from the family compound, Hisoka planned moves that would cement rumors that Zoldyck heirs had started dropping dead. It wasn't because he was nice or anything. He was quite awful and he knew it, but Kalluto was still a child, and when Hisoka was his age, he and his mother were still clowns in Hass.

“I'll try,” Kalluto whispered.

This was a child. Hisoka didn't have any children. The violence done to him over the years had fully destroyed parts of his reproductive system, and he knew he would never be able to have children of his own.

“If you'll do what it takes, then the Troupe is yours for the taking.”

With that, Hisoka walked away. He still had a half an hour before the auction, and he hadn't yet applied his makeup. He'd let Kalluto do the planning, and then execute his part right after the auction ended but before the dates were asked to join their buyers. Hisoka's lips curled into a smile. A week. He and his colleagues had signed signed contracts to live under the mercy of their buyers for a week before they were to be returned to the hotel auction arena. If they weren't returned in once piece on the due date, a Zoldyck, ironically, would be dispatched to retrieve whatever was left of the servicer and kill the buyer. After the week was over, the servicers and buyers could do whatever they wanted. The workers could return to their usual routines and go back to working in one of the many state-regulated brothels scattered throughout the city. Buyers could become long-term associates. Buyers could disappear and never contact the prostitute ever again.

Or they could get married.

Hisoka's eyes gleamed. Somewhere, in that crowd, there was a six and a half feet tall behemoth weighing over two hundred pounds, a monster built of pure muscle and hard as steel. Or maybe there was a lithe beauty with soft, blonde hair and a penchant for strangling his victims with chains. Perhaps there was a lady who liked cooking for a living and killing as a hobby. Or maybe there was an older man, a man who ran one of the many multinationals in Yorknew, a man who wanted a pretty companion for one of his many corporate gatherings. Someone in that crowd had to have enough power to bring the city to its knees, and he wanted to dance for that someone. He wanted to climb a pole, maybe strip, perhaps perform a burlesque routine, all for that special someone. Someone in that crowd would thirst for his his body, ache for his ministrations, claim his soul for themselves.

Hisoka's heart thrummed and he sighed dramatically. Kiss, kiss. It was time to fall in love.

* * *

The hat hung over Bisky's eyes, darkening her already shadowy presence. She looked like one of those men her father has warned her to stay away from. They're goons, he told her. They're uncouth dogs of Yorknew's worst neighborhoods, she remembered. But then she scoffed. There weren't any bad neighborhoods in Yorknew. There were only colors and life- colors, life, and the treasures Bisky sought out for a living.

Colors, life, and filth. All of Yorknew was filth. She sneered at all the bad memories that began to poke out of the crevices in her mind, and she inwardly growled at them to go away. Begone, she thought, let me live.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome! Please pull up your mirrors before we begin!”

They were one-way mirrors where the escorts could view themselves but not the buyer behind the mirror. Bisky huffed, but pulled up the mirror anyway. She straightened the collar of her frilly red dress and smacked her red colored lips. Her foot had started tapping in anticipation.

“And without further delay, the beauties of Yorknew welcome you!”

There was thunderous applause, of which Bisky heartily participated in. One by one, Yorknew's escorts were auctioned off to lusty buyers, about eight of whom she knew personally and would tease later for being this wanton for a little companionship. Bisky was already known to buy love, but many of her colleagues swore up and down they'd found love the 'normal' way. She snickered. She eyed Netero's silhouette from afar. The perv. He was well over a hundred years old and should have concentrated on liquidating his assets before dropping dead, but here he was, lounging with a drunken smile on his face.

He bid 200 million jenny on a woman about forty years of age.

She saw monarchs, monsters, brethren of the Hunter Association she was a part of. Leorio, a novice doctor under the Hunter Association's tutelage, salivated as he watched one escort after another. He'd never make a purchase. He was too green, still believed in true love. He came here with Kurapika who she knew _would_ make a purchase, but of course, the purchase wouldn't be for sex, but for the amount of information any one of the escorts would willingly hand over once he'd won his bid. Knowing him, he'd purchase at least two, and then quietly ask the ushers to make him and his team disappear until it was time to pick up the escorts.

Nothing of grave import touched Bisky's heart, and she sighed listlessly. There were pretty women in knee-length dresses, busty ones in gowns, lithe women in casual wear. Men came out in suits, some of them fully nude, others bedecked in dresses, jewels, shimmery cloth of all colors and fabrics. Those that hovered in between the gender spectrum came out in colorful kurtas and pressed slacks, or hid behind a veil of neutrality that left the audience begging for more. There were dancers, secretaries, strongmen, and musicians. Anything and everything, something for nothing.

It was a charity, after all. All of the money would fund the new clinic. These people didn't have to agree to participate but Bisky figured they cared more about their own than the loneliness of the audience members. They had Bisky's respect, and as always, she'd respect whoever joined her in the limo tonight.

If she could find someone.

She frowned while fanning her neck. Where was her one true love for the week? Wing would have her head if he found her drunk and slumped over the dining room table back at the castle. She wanted to have a pretty person on her arm for brunch. No doubt her son would still judge her, but still.

Then a clown came out. Bisky blinked three times before realizing there was a monster on the stage. Before him, the assorted escorts were all on varying levels of dangerous, but none so lethal that Bisky unconsciously reached for the pistol in her bra. But this one. This one was beyond lethal. This was one commanded the room to look at him and _only_ him. Her breath hitched and her eyes grew wide.

He had thick, red hair and stood over six feet tall. A few inches were complimented by the the red-soled, black high-heeled boots on his feet. He wore a blue, silk tunic that had a diamond and a heart imprinted on its front. As he twirled, she caught a spade and a club imprinted on the back of the tunic. He wore standard white bloomers, ones she'd seen many other circus performers wear, and had on plain white makeup. A yellow teardrop was painted under his left eye and a blue star painted under his right eye. He had stretched, green rings of cloth on his neck, arms, hands, lower leg, and midriff. He had thick, gold ankle bracelets that complimented the yellow cloth that lined the cut sleeves of his tunic. He was graceful, tall, pliant like gum, and about the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.

Something clicked in the back of her head, and Bisky forgot to breathe.

“Three hundred million jenny for Hisoka-san! Anyone else? Speak now or forever hold your peace, folks!”

“One billion jenny!” She shouted at the top of her lungs.

She saw Leorio jump and Pariston Hill side-eye her from his perch, but she didn't care. How she managed to keep her voice sweet and cutesy at such a loud volume, even she didn't know, but she managed it and now one billion jenny was about to go straight to a new medical clinic for Yorknew's prostitutes.

“One billion from buyer number 53! Going once! Going twi-”

“1.5 billion!” Bisky saw Leorio waving his card on behalf of Kurapika, even though both were obscured from the clown's view.

“1.5 billion jenny, thus far our highest bid! Hisoka-san, how do you feel?”

The auctioneer held out the microphone to the man with the beautiful face, but he just chuckled coquettishly and didn't give an answer. Bisky felt her loins throb.

“Three billion!” She called again.

“Five billion,” prompted Melody, one of Kurapika's closest associates. She had nothing against the young hunter or his fast climb up the underground's ladder to power, but the clown was hers. No one, not even a notorious Blacklist mercenary who killed thieves in the shadows with his chains, would take this from her.

“8.2 billion jenny,” she called, and that was it. She saw Kurapika start to open his mouth, but Melody put a hand over it while Leorio patted his shoulder and gave Bisky a thumbs up for a good game. She smirked and looked back to the man who'd join her tonight and for another week after.

He wasn't smiling anymore and she felt her heart drop.

* * *

The auction ended at midnight, and right before the escorts were meant to join their buyers, Hisoka feigned surprise when he found Kalluto leaving the administrative room with a bag full of cash. They tussled, Hisoka had his hair pulled and one of his eyes punched in, but not before he stabbed Kalluto with a pair of scissors (he made sure it was a flesh wound that would leave minimal scarring) and smacked him across the face. While Kalluto bled on the floor, Hisoka went to call security. By the time they returned, Kalluto was gone and the money lay scattered on the floor. Hisoka pretended to faint. Whilst in the throes of being fussed over, he managed to fall asleep out of sheer boredom.

He opened his eyes to sleek leather seats and a pillow underneath his head. A blanket lay draped over his shoulders.

“Feeling better, darling?”

Hisoka yawned and touched the tender skin around his bruised eye. “Better. I apologize for my looks, madame.”

The high-pitched voice laughed loudly- this was his buyer. It irked him to no end that she sounded like she was nineteen years old and had just started college, but he supposed he should have been prepared for a botched purchase. He inwardly sighed. He'd service her and disappear. She sounded boring already. Probably a literature major who wanted to live the fantasy life for a week and got her father to pay for it. Deep down, he prayed it wasn't Neon Nostrade. He'd heard stories about her.

“When we get back to the castle, I'll have my people look you over. You can get some rest until then.”

Hisoka quirked an eyebrow. He was behind a black barrier that separated him from the buyer and the driver. This was different. Usually, the hidden elite were hungry for contact the second people like him entered the car. Even if she didn't ravage him right there, he'd expected some fondling, a little kissing, maybe even a little head. But there was no one in the back with him.

He had a blanket and a pillow, along with a mini fridge, a cooler, and a basket. He opened the fridge and found an assortment of cold snacks, and when he opened the cooler, there were cans of soda and bottles of juice. The basket held dry snacks, both junk and health foods. No alcohol, no drugs, and no unopened packets of condoms. He blinked.

What the fuck.

“Settle in, sweetie pie. It's another hour before we're at the gate.”

He chuckled and thanked her warmly. Well, as warmly as he could manage, he supposed. Opening up a bag of chips and a bottle of water, he settled in for the long ride to his buyer's fuckpad. He didn't know what she looked like, who she was, what she did, but what he did know was that she had money. Maybe she would be entertaining enough for Hisoka to jot down her name in his notebook and offer his companionship to her after the week was over, but who knew.

Hisoka certainly didn't.

* * *

“How did he look?”

“Like he always does, Dancho,” Shalnark shrugged. Machi glared daggers at him but he just blew her a raspberry and went back to his phone.

“What did he wear?”

“A standard black suit,” Maki cut in before Shalnark could rattle off a bunch of useless sentences. “He didn't wear leather shoes like he did to the last banquet.”

“Moccasins,” Shalnark remarked. “He wore moccasins.”

“He wore moccasins to an underground whore auction.” There was awe in Chrollo Lucilfer's voice, as if the very thought was simply majestic. “Were they comfortable?”

“They looked fine, Danchou,” Machi replied.

“And what did he buy?”

Machi looked to Shalnark who was still tapping away on his phone, no doubt gathering intelligence on the prostitute Kurapika Kurta had purchased at the auction. Shalnark was in his zone, so Machi sighed and answered instead.

“A man named Kastro. He initially had his eyes on someone else, but a buyer named Cookie outbid him. He put up over a billion jenny but he still lost.”

“And who did he have his eyes on?” Chrollo Lucilfer asked, his eyes closed and his arms wide open in front of a floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked Yorknew from thirty stories above.

“Hisoka Morow,” Machi said carefully. “I hired him earlier to run interference on Kalluto's mission so we could assess his strength. We didn't... we didn't expect him to be the Kurta's top choice. As far as I know, Morow had no idea a private auction was being held on the east side until I told him. It seems absurd that the Kurta would bid on someone who entered the auction pool so late, but that's what happened.”

“Hisoka Morow.” Chrollo opened his eyes and let his arms fall to his side. “The homicidal whore. How many has he killed as of now, Machi?”

“Only the hundred that we know of,” Machi explained. “Not counting those that disappeared... and those we couldn't find.”

“Does he still desire me?”

Maki kept her face blank, but couldn't stop the sweat from breaking out across her skin. “He does, Danchou.”

“And now he'll be warming Miss. Cookie's bed,” Chrollo sighed. “But that doesn't mean I forgive him.”

Shalnark whistled loudly while Machi's heart began to thunder in her chest. She stood still, but the needles underneath her suit were soaked in sweat while her body threatened to break out into shivers and bring her to her knees. Shalnark gave her a quick warning with his eyes before turning his gaze back to his smartphone.

“You know, when he first killed Uvo, I wanted to rip his heart out. I wanted to squeeze it inside of his chest while it was still beating. I had figured by then, he'd tell us where he hid Uvo's body. But that's now how it happened, did it?”

“No, it didn't.” Shalnark mused, laughing heartily while his eyes blazed with fury. Yet, he kept his eyes on his phone.

“He had me chained in a windowless room for a week,” Chrollo sighed dreamily, his eyes brimming with love. “He could have taken me in any which way he desired, but he kept me locked away with food and water, and no one to keep me company. And he didn't hurt me. There was no light in the room except when that woman brought me food and water, and even then, only pale slivers of light slipped in while she placed the tray on the floor in front of me. I was... safe. He kept me safe.”

If Shalnark didn't have such impeccable self-control, Machi knew he'd throw the phone right at Chrollo's head. But Shalnark was an old soul. The love of his life had died a morbid death at the hands of a chain-wielding mercenary who sat on a throne made from the bones of the men and women he'd killed since he entered the underground. Paku had died next, then Nobunaga had disappeared after Chrollo refused to kill the Kurta, and now there was an active order in the Troupe for his capture because of his defection. Kurapika Kurta had ruined them, killed their comrades, somehow poisoned their leader's mind.

Chrollo had turned on them in the worst way possible.

“He'll take care of me again,” Chrollo promised them. The night sky was clear and inviting. “He'll chain me to his bed and make me his. I can feel it. It's love that brought us together, you know.”

You murdered his family, she wanted to say.

“I was never as free as I was when I was in that room.”

You're still in that room, she wanted to scream, you never left.

“Kastro and Hisoka turned tricks in the same building once,” Shalnark offered. “Except they called it 'sugaring' because they were long-term with the johns who put them up in the high-rise. Whatever _that_ means,” he finished cheekily.

Chrollo hummed a forgotten tune, something he'd picked up from his travels around the world. “Kastro is the 'other' in this story. He wasn't the focus. He just happened to be a flimsy enough substitute.”

“The Kurta got him for about a 100 million jenny, so you're not wrong,” Shalnark added.

Chrollo smiled. He hadn't looked at them once, but he smiled bright and bold, as if ready to go off on adventure. “Kill him.”

“Kastro?” Shalnark asked. Machi's breathing came to a stop.

“No, silly. Why would I want the substitute?” Chrollo Lucilfer finally turned around and looked at his subordinates. His face was the same but his smile was the single worst thing Machi had ever seen in her life. It was sweet, the smile of a new bride who longed for her husband more than anything else. There was love crinkling in the corners of his eyes. He clasped his hands to his chest and looked at Machi and Shalnark like he was about to tell them the good news of his impending nuptials.

“Hisoka,” he said. “Kill Hisoka and bring me his head.”

While the three stood in silence in Chrollo's room, a light rain began to fall over Yorknew. Shalnark tapped away on his phone while Machi stared at the man she'd followed since she was a child. Chrollo's form was rigid, but his smile told them that his heart was light. He was at ease. He had faced Death himself; Death wore moccasins to an underground whore auction, and Death made Chrollo feel whole.

No one saw the Zoldyck that crawled through the vents and listened to their conversation, and no one saw him when he disappeared through the cracks and vanished.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ayyy!!! Brand new chapter, still in the exposition/intro stages, but we're almost done!
> 
> And the plot thickens! Please bear with me in regards to Chrollo's behavior and the way Shalnark and Machi react around them. There's actually an important reason why they're behaving the way they are. 
> 
> If you enjoyed the ride thus, please don't hesitate to leave a review!! (*￣з￣)


	3. Poured on a Symphony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With regards to power and sex, you often had to wonder if there was ever a distinction to begin with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title of the chapter borrowed from Coldplay's "Hymn from the Weekend."

Well, it definitely wasn't a fuckpad. He was asked to blindfold himself with a piece of cloth that was hidden in a secret compartment he only found when he was given instructions on how to open it. That was when they were at the twenty minute mark from the supposed destination. He complied, all coy smiles and honeyed lip service. He tried eliciting information through conversation, but boss lady, she was _quick_. It didn't even take her a minute, and the high-pitched laughter that had initially earned his annoyance became more and more infuriating. This one's going to be a pillow princess in bed, he thought, and inwardly frowned. He wanted a daddy. She was going to make him remember childhood memories of his _actual_ parents, who would no doubt frown upon his chosen profession if they were still alive.

When they got to their destination, Hisoka only had three seconds to breathe in the fresh air before someone picked him off his feet, swung him over their shoulder, and started carrying him somewhere. He didn't think the driver would be _that_ strong. This didn't make him feel any better. His buyer couldn't have been that weak, could she?

He wanted to outwardly frown, but controlled himself. Instead, he giggled and let his ears seek out the lighter footsteps that followed him and the beefcake. They were delicate, like a ballerina's. He wanted to scream. He prayed she had some sort of domination complex, or he'd have to fake orgasms all week. All bloody week. Hisoka wanted to cry about his misfortune, but instead, let himself pout. It was a cute pout, he knew. His buyer would no doubt appreciate it, maybe even smear some lipstick on his lips before kissing them deeply. He sighed. That would be glorious.

Surprisingly, it didn't take long for him to get placed on a soft divan. The beefcake and his light-stepped buyer both soon disappeared. It was only after several minutes that his buyer's voice started coming from a speaker.

“Take off the blindfold, Hisoka-san.”

He did as he was told and opened his eyes. The room was larger than any sitting room he'd been in before, and it was awfully ostentatious. There was the divan he was sitting on, and then there were couches, chairs, a coffee table made from glass and stone, marble floors, sculptures, gold-threaded curtains, heavy white lights- everything out of an empress's tea room.

Hisoka didn't let his awe show on his face. Instead, he focused on his dainty fingers and filed nails.

“Attendants will be with you soon, Hisoka-san,” she remarked. “After they're done patching you up, they'll take you to your room. I'll see you tomorrow morning for breakfast.” And with that, the voice disappeared and Hisoka was alone.

He had no doubt she was watching from wherever she was, but he had to be honest- he had expected to put in some work tonight. He had played with his fingers as an invitation for sex. They were ready to slip in between her legs, but he assumed she either didn't understand the art of seduction or just didn't care to play with him tonight.

He then remembered the bruise. She hid her disgust well. A more aggressive patron would have slapped him around some more before taking him from the back or ridden him while he was gagging on their panties. But this one- whatever this one was, he didn't like. Too many surprises. Hisoka was a clown once. Too many surprises meant someone was going to get hurt at the end of the show.

While he was thinking, a pair of attendants slipped in from a door he hadn't noticed before. They cleaned and dressed his bruise, applied a cream he knew would heal him within hours (an illegal brand that would never be available to the masses), and then took him to his bedroom.

A bed full of roses. He was alone before he knew it, the dim light of the fireplace his only companion.

* * *

 

Bisky stared at the beautiful man from her camera room. She chuckled at the blindfold left in the den. Not a bit of makeup was on it. High quality cosmetics, $3000 boots, but the bloomers and the tunic were hand-made. He never stopped surprising her, and she had only known him for about three hours.

He was in his bedroom now, the room she'd prepared herself. Like she did tonight, she made sure she didn't have any fragrances on when she was prepping the place. Her body's unique scent was hidden by the protective suit she'd worn, so even if he had a good sense of smell, he'd never be able to figure out that the person that carried her wasn't her driver, but Bisky herself.

She kept her grinning face and dark brown eyes on the camera that showed his bedroom. She saw the knowing glint in his eyes, realized that _he'd_ realized there were cameras in his room. There were none in the bathroom or the walk-in closet where he could get dressed, but she'd made the main room's cameras obvious.

And they were easy to destroy. He had options. If he didn't want her staring, all he had to do was pull out the wires and call it a day. Instead, he stripped in plain sight. Her breath hitched and her eyes grew wide.

Piece after piece of clothing was discarded onto the rug beneath his feet. He first took off his tunic, then the stretchy green cloth. He sat on a padded bench and bent over to take off his shoes. He unclasped the gold ankle bracelets and let them fall on top of the tunic and green cloth. He undid his bloomers, let them slip off his hairless legs. He pulled down his underwear and lounged elegantly on the bench in all his naked glory. Bisky felt her breath coming in harsh gasps, and she was sure that if she had a heart attack tonight, she'd have no qualms. She'd die like a warrior- a beautiful man's nude glory emblazoned into her mind before she met her maker.

After a few seconds, he got up and went to the bathroom. Bisky let her eyes drop to the keypad underneath her fingers and controlled her breathing.

“Bisky-chama, do you want me to prepare your bath?” Her assistant, Cookie, gently shook her shoulder and brought her back to reality. Bisky beamed at the beautiful thirty-year old woman she'd hired almost ten years ago. Cookie looked especially gorgeous in her dress and jewelry tonight, and she made a mental note to add a bonus to her next paycheck. Bisky didn't keep that many friends, not in the business she was in, so Cookie was both her employee and her only real friend. Bisky would always make sure there was an incentive for her to be around. Cookie was quick, efficient, and always ready to participate in whatever hunt or scheme Bisky had in mind.

And Cookie never laughed at her. Cookie never laughed at the beast that employed her. She laughed _with_ her, at the amateur treasure hunters who thought they could beat Biscuit Krueger at her own game, she laughed at comedy films, at theater, even when eating because Cookie was always a gentle thrum of serenity and positivity. Cookie didn't hesitate to touch her steel hard skin, or pat her muscled arms as a gesture of friendship. Cookie didn't balk at Bisky's girth when she took measurements for another dress Bisky had fallen in love with, didn't mind making purchases for Bisky when she was busy on a hunt and couldn't feign dressing as the driver and letting Cookie be the princess who needed coddling. Her friend Cookie, she looked at Bisky as if she was a human being, not as if she belonged in an army fighting a foreign war with her bare fists.

Bisky laughed. She was a voyeur, a purchaser of prostitutes, a monster among men. She actually _had_ fought several wars, being fifty-seven and a damned mercenary at that. Bisky lived for good music, loud colors, great food, Cookie's companionship, and the occasional dick between her legs.

And Bisky loved love itself, but she'd never found it, so she bought it for short intervals instead.

“Bisky-chama?” Cookie asked inquiringly.

“A bath would be great, Cookie,” she replied airily. Her friend nodded and slipped off to Bisky's private chambers while Bisky turned back to the screen.

Hisoka had returned to the padded bench with a bowl of water and a washing rag. He'd cleaned the makeup off in the bathroom as best as he could without disturbing his bruise and had washed his hair. It couldn't have been five minutes since she had taken her eyes off the screen, but he already started to look more and more like a fallen angel. And he was quick and efficient. He hadn't wasted a second of his time.

She knew that he was aware of her gaze and yet he began to wash himself with the soapy water and the soft cloth. He started with his arms, slowly rubbing circles into his skin, skin that was riddled with scars. He was a natural. He'd been in the game long enough to realize that cosmetic surgery wasn't a part of his business strategy. The only tweaks were the waxed legs, arms, and chest. His beard was shaved, but he'd have a shadow when he woke up in the morning. His pubic hair wasn't overtly bushy, and it didn't look as if it had been professionally trimmed. His penis lay flaccid in between his legs while he worked the cloth around as much of his body as he could reach without breaking his back.

He wiped his legs, his armpits, the skin on his neck that looked so lovely to her. He was tan and pretty. The makeup was chalk white, but his true skin- it was sun-kissed and lovely. Like an angel, an angel with scars, discolored blotches of skin in some places, dainty fingers, filed nails, muscled thighs, and a wide shoulder. He was angel, an angel who'd be her lover for a week before she dropped him back at the auction house and dived straight into her new hunt. She'd always remember how he looked right now, how he'd transitioned from a joker to her bride, how that pretty smile never left his lips while he undid his gold ankle bracelets and washed the skin between his toes. There was no shame. He was what he was, and this was what Bisky had signed a contract to hold onto until her week was over.

When he was done, he put the cloth in the bowl and returned to the washroom. He was back before she knew it, and slipped right underneath the sheets. He didn't even bother to pull the drapes around his canopy bed so could sleep without the light of the fireplace bothering him and the cameras watching him. No. He fell asleep almost instantly and all Bisky could do was stare at the beauty she'd found on a dark night in a dying city.

While she took her own bath, she slipped into her mind and wondered what it would feel like to hold him in her arms.

* * *

 

He woke up late, as he'd originally planned. Usually, his patron would control his schedule, but he'd made the decision last night to play a game with this one.

Yes, he was going to play a game with someone who clearly had no intention of showing their face until it was time for him to play the panting pet. He'd given her a show to glean if she'd burst through the door and ask him to wreck every inch of her and cum on her breasts. He'd be her forbidden fruit, the piece of flesh she'd bite into only when she'd had enough of his kittenish laughter and his teasing words. He'd be her knight, the man she'd starve herself from until she couldn't handle it anymore and then she'd slip into his room one night while he was asleep and wake him up with her mouth wrapped around his cock.

At least, that was the game he perceived this situation to be. He sincerely hoped he wasn't being kept for a ritual sacrifice because he didn't think he'd enjoy Silva Zoldyck happening upon his frozen body parts after his new patron finished killing him after eating his liver. OK, so he read too many horror novels and probably shouldn't have read that new penny dreadful that came out the other week, but he had every right to be a tad bit upset.

He'd come here to pleasure someone as a part of a contract. All he'd done thus far was nap in a limo, eat some chips, and clean himself with expensive bath soap diluted with warm water. But at least the sheets were comfortable and the bed was soft. His body was at ease. There were no drugs in his system, his eye felt much better, and his heart rate was steady. If he was wrong and the woman was a shy, second year college student who'd purchased his services because she was too timid to find love on her own, then he'd treat her like she was made of porcelain.

She'd be his wife and he her lord husband. He'd be soft, but teasing. He'd kiss as much skin as she allowed. He'd eat her pussy, lick the folds up and down like they were delicate flowers and make her quiver before his tongue even touched her clit. He'd let her return the favor by lying down on his back and letting her learn at her own pace. He'd teach her how to properly ride a man for her own pleasure and then settle her down on her back and take gentle but firm control of her hips. He'd whisper in her ear, ask her if she wanted his seed on her stomach or deep inside of her. He'd make her wet. He'd make her so wet she couldn't get enough of him, that she'd ask him to take her several times a day, and make him cum inside of her, on her face, on her breasts, on her back. She'd ride him in the sitting room, and he'd take her from behind while she was showering. He'd crook his fingers inside of her and scissor her to climax while she fed him orange slices. He'd eat her while she clutched at her breasts. He'd undress her with his teeth, and he'd do it gently, oh so gently.

And at the end of the week, he'd leave her and blacklist her from his life.

He stretched and smiled smugly, only barely containing his wrath. He wanted a queen, not a princess. He'd give her every inch of his body, if she so desired, but if she was anything like the glass-like creatures that lived in the underground elite as sons and daughters of the ruling class, he'd hate her from the second she stepped into this room. Normally, he'd have taken up a person like her for a few casual shopping trips and dinner, but he tried his best not to intimately service them. This one was bound to crawl into his bed eventually, and he'd hate her the second she touched him if she was anything like the Nostrade girl and her breed.

Alas, it was for a good cause, and he'd dated killers before, but never one so filthy rich. Did her father enter the auction as the bidder? Did he get him for her? Was he the one who carried him into the sitting room? He stretched his arms and then got up to open the thick curtains. When they were pulled apart, he gazed out to acres of forestry, and before that, a manicured lawn that already had chairs and food being set up.

He was at a castle. An actual, godforsaken castle.

He gulped inwardly and headed to the bathroom. He wasn't very religious, but he earnestly prayed to whatever deity was out there that he didn't end up at a sacrificial alter. He'd hate to have to commit murder again.

* * *

 

Bisky was already outside when he came out dressed in a soft pink shirt and a pair of pale yellow slacks. She'd had them tailored overnight. It was easy for her people to sneak in and take his clothes for measurements, and by the time he'd woken up late into the morning, several suits of clothes were waiting for him in the walk-in closet, along with shoes, jewelry, makeup, and whatever else he might have desired.

He came out natural, as she suspected. He'd give her a different kind of show last night, the kind that was wholly private and not a show at all, but if anyone happened upon it, arousal was imminent. She knew that if she asked, he'd give her a lap dance in costume, but it was breakfast. She hadn't eaten, and he was likely hungry to satiate his basic needs. There would be no dilly-dallying. She'd have to take him for what he was.

And he was beautiful still. His thick red hair shined in the late morning sun, and he walked confidently but languidly enough that there was a slight sway to his hips.

“I thought mirrors were for private auctions?” He asked softly, his lips slightly colored from the lip balm she'd provided.

“Would you prefer lace curtains?” She replied charmingly.

“I'd prefer to see your face.” There was a curiosity in his eyes that hurt her to her core.

“My face isn't what's important. Tell me, how did you sleep?”

“Well. Yourself?”

Short and concise, and Bisky knew the game had resumed. He played the part of the annoyed lover well. Annoyed, but too respectful to try her patience, and so he kept his words short.

She smirked and spoke into her microphone. “Were the pillows to your taste?” She quipped, upping the tenor of her voice and soaking it in sugar and honey.

“The pillows were lovely.” He started on the light broth and sparking water. He took small scoops, smaller sips. He wiped his mouth with a napkin, and poured a glass of juice- the epitome of polite, a charade detailing he could act the part of the polite guest.

She watched and smiled. Cookie sat inside the castle, recording their every movement. “And the blood?” She asked finally.

He stilled, if only for a second. Hisoka Morow raised his eyes to the mirror that separated her from him. They were brown eyes, not the kind of eyes poets wrote sonnets about, but to Bisky, they were the eyes of a monster that had taken up a human form and could bring nations to their knees. “Madame, I don't believe I ever caught your name. My name is Hisoka. Who might you be?”

Bisky wanted a cigarette, but Cookie had cut them from her diet years ago. She stared at Hisoka from behind the mirror and marveled at the man who'd murdered so many of his patrons that Bisky was surprised the auction house had even allowed his name to be put into the goods list. Before, she'd only known him as the whore who didn't take blatant disrespect too kindly, and certainly not dates who didn't pay the promised allowance. Hunters knew their whores, and Hisoka's line of workers were the kind of people Hunters stayed away from. They were the ones most capable of wringing a Hunter's neck. Bisky shouldn’t have bid, should have let Kurapika get his information, and called it a dead night, but no. Last night was the first time she saw him dressed up as a clown, yet at the same time, she knew he wasn't just _dressed_ as a clown. He _was_ a clown. At least, he had been before he entered the underground's sex industry. He was a legend, a man only few from the Association had sampled because of his pickiness, and his past was a mystery. The hunters that dated him kept their lips tight, no doubt at the behest of their darling beauty.

But beauty had its price, and she knew it was one she'd never pay- not the way she lived.

“Biscuit Krueger,” she replied nonchalantly, plopping a grape into her mouth.

This time, his eyes widened and he let it show that he was shocked. It wasn't just a mirror he was staring at. She'd let Hisoka Morow know that he was sitting in front of the most notorious treasure hunter in the world, a crone who'd fought wars, who's son was older than he was, and who had more than a thousand bodies to her name. At least, bodies the world knew about, and bodies no one could put her in jail for because of plausible deniability and that wonderful thing known as political immunity. If he was a legend, then she was a myth. She'd hunted, discovered, excavated, and tracked everything from gemstones to people. She was the ultimate treasure hunter who only existed in whispers because _obviously_ , no one could be _that_ accomplished and _still_ be a woman and have _all_ the luxuries of the world at her feet. And more than that, she was old. She should have been dead. No one outside the Hunter Association knew what she looked like, and yet her name was known both to the public and the black market underneath. She was a mentor to some, a harbinger of death to others. Her body shouldn't have been able to handle the wars, the hunts, the triumphs. She didn't exist- she _couldn't_.

But she did, and her castle and forest spoke for themselves. He, a beauty, was sitting opposite of a literal beast.

“Don't look so surprised, darling,” she giggled. She heard Cookie sigh through her earpiece. She knew Wing would drop by later with more judgmental looks and equally shady comments, but that only increased her mirth.

Hisoka laughed. It was a vibrant laugh that came from deep within his chest. Her heart fluttered at the sound that she'd inadvertently brought into existence. Tears prickled her eyes and she sniffed. Old age was doing her in quicker than she expected.

He cocked his head to the side and gave her a toothy smile. “And here I thought I'd be entertaining a young lady.”

“I'm a young lady,” she huffed, fanning herself with her foldable fan.

He pouted. “Shame. Someone so wise could teach me a thing or two.”

“I'm sure a gentleman of your caliber doesn't need any lessons from an old biddy like me,” she purred, though the action of referring to herself as anything over twenty-one evoked fear in her heart.

He folded his hands across the table and hummed, smirking at her string of contradictions. Bisky pouted, but the teasing made her heart light. Her eyes traveled to his hands. They were so pretty. Bisky wondered how they'd feel on her shoulders after a long day of hunting, imagined those smooth knuckles knead the taught muscle and joints of her shoulder while she melted underneath their care. She'd have to hold them one night when he was sleeping. Just... hold them. His hands were half the size of her own- delicate, like gossamer.

“I'm a life-long learner, Madame Krueger.”

“Bisky. You can call me Bisky.”

“Bisky?”

“Biscuit is my Catholic name.”

He broke into a bout of pleasant chuckles. “Your parents named you Biscuit?”

“I never said my parents loved me,” she tooted with a pout, but it was a pout he couldn't see. And yet, that didn't stop him from smiling. Bisky found herself fall farther and farther into a pit she knew she'd have great difficulty climbing out of at the end of the week.

“So, Bisky,” he drew circles on the blue table cloth with the tip of his index finger but looked straight at the mirrored box that Bisky hid inside, “you know what I am, and now I know who you are. So, what it is it that you expect from me?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“I mean, if you can keep smiling, I think that'll suffice. You have free reign over the forest and the castle, except the exits. Don't worry. My attendants will always be around to help you if you stray too far, so feel free to just... roam.”

“You're giving me free reign over your home knowing full well I've killed before?”

Bisky wished he could see the sharp smile that bloomed on her face. “I've always liked a challenge.”

“And you'll what? Stare at me from your camera room?”

She sighed loudly, three seconds away from fanning her vagina. Could a man be this beautiful? How was this even possible? Illegal, she thought. “You don't have to make it sound so _scandalous_.”

“So you _were_ looking,” he chuckled. “Did you appreciate the view?”

“I'd have to be blind not to,” she said in her most honest tone.

“Then why didn't you come visit me afterwards? Why don't you step outside that box you're sitting in right now and take me?”

“No,” she barked sharply. He immediately backed down, his face having taken up a neutral expression, hands politely folded on his lap. Her breath hitched and fear began to permeate throughout her body. He'd stopped smiling. She'd wiped it right off his face. She hadn't meant to sound so... _ugly._ “I meant that I wouldn't be bothering you like that.” He didn't seem convinced. “You can use your phone and I have computers set up. Feel free to surf the web, use my credit card, buy whatever you like. We'll share meals, but besides that, you have no other obligations. At the end of the week, I'll have my people drop you off at the auction house.”

He seemed to be in deep thought. “So I'm more of a bird than I am a harlot. Is that what I am, Bisky?”

“You're my _guest_ ,” she clipped. He was trying her patience, and Bisky wasn't known to be the calmest of creatures. And he was doing it on purpose. He was trapping her, and she was letting him. She had to. If only he could smile again.

“If you wanted guests, you would have called your friends, but you didn't. You bought my body for money but you don't actually intend to use it.” He sounded disappointed.

She guffawed and finally, finally a tinge of her true voice broke out. It was deeper than the cheery voice she usually used to con those around her. It had a tinge of tinniness to it. She was a weightlifter, a mixed martial artist, a bare knuckle fighter. She hadn't exactly pampered herself in the traditional, feminine fashion well enough to retain a voice worth falling in love with.

She sounded old and gruff. That's what that voice was, her real one- a gruff, dark melancholic hodgepodge of notes she used when she'd finally found her treasure. And Hisoka. Hisoka was a treasure few survived to tell the tale about. He was a siren in her eyes. Anyone else with half a brain would keep him happy, lap at his feet, let him have his way with them, if only to gain his favor for a few seconds.

But she wanted more than just his favor. She wanted his smile. Not a lot of people smiled at her. Who would, with the body she had taken years to build and the life that she chose to lead?

“I'll let the attendants take you inside. They'll bring you back outside after they've cleaned up. If you need anything, you only have to dial zero on your phone and one will come to you. They'll be close by, and you'll always be safe.”

Always, she promised herself.

He nodded cordially and let the attendants escort him back inside the castle. Behind the mirror, she began to cry softy.

* * *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaah, final intro/expos chapter! Hope y'all enjoyed!


	4. My Presence is a Present

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A scheming clown and a smitten warlord- what could possibly go wrong? Everything. The answer is everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is a lyric from Kanye West's iconic song, "Monster."
> 
> Any sections that are italicized are dream sequences.

Hisoka stripped and laid down for a nap instead of going back into the forest. He was strangely tense, and being tense while on the job was a marker of impending failure. He couldn't fail, not when there was a challenge to be completed.

Biscuit Krueger would fuck him raw and have him cumming inside her before the week was over.

It wasn't a thing of pride, no. It was a game. She wanted to keep him locked away in her wonderland for a week, while he wanted to see and feel what his patron was all about. Shopping for himself and with his own money was one thing, but what fun was that if you couldn't get someone to pick things for _you_ when they were the ones actively footing the bill? If he wanted to do everything from the comfort of his own home, he would have taken up camming and performing services from a motel. No. He signed up for the glamorous life because he fancied something more than just the capital that poured into his hands before and after his dates. The money was great, more than he could have ever imagined, but he also wanted that _spark_. Not to say that he wouldn't kill to get his dues (he would and he had), but Biscuit Krueger had already shown her monetary worth. He knew he could trust the notorious Hunter with allocating her funds properly, but there had to be more.

Hisoka _knew_ there was more. He always knew Hunters to be excruciatingly careful, but his knowledge of her being in the auction house meant there _had_ to be more. That meant they _weren't_ as careful as they touted themselves to be, and Hisoka would use that to his advantage to creep into the Hunter Association's treasure trove of shrewd and rich mercenaries looking for a pretty thing to put on their arm.

His years in the circus and his forced participation in bare-knuckle fist fighting had provided foundations for his eventual education in dancing, singing, stripping, and martial arts- and of course, murder and info-hoarding. He was a man of many talents, after all. He couldn't let this pretty bird complex stand. Biscuit Krueger _would_ tie him up eventually, and then strip away article after article of clothing, palm his erection, and bite his nipples until he begged for her to ride him and put him out of his misery.

Yet, he couldn't outwardly be greedy for attention. That was for when he was off the clock and browsing the makeup shop at his favorite bazaar, or when he was buying fabrics for his circus costumes. Those were private dealings, purchases he made with his life on the line. He sweet-talked all of the shopkeepers, kept all of their names and personal information emblazoned in his memory, and he didn't stop. Whatever he wanted, he got his hands on. He deserved it all. He'd already sold both his body and his soul, so the world was his for the taking.

If Biscuit Krueger wanted a pretty bird, then she'd have to play for it. If that credit card was his for the taking, then he'd buy only what he knew would titillate her. He already knew his body was something she thoroughly desired, but he'd make her crave his nonexistent soul. She'd beg for it, if he had anything to do with it.

His phone buzzed, breaking his concentration. The screen said Paper and provided a picture of an origami cat. He let the phone buzz as he got out of the bed and stepped into the bathroom. He clicked the accept sign while shutting the door and then slid down to the floor. “I hope I didn't leave too deep of a cut,” he said apologetically.

“You need to hide,” the fifteen year old Zoldyck groused.

Hisoka perked an eyebrow in confusion but kept his voice even. “I'm working this week, Kalluto-kun.”

“Make your mistress take a vacation with you. Get out of the country, Hisoka-san. It's not safe for you.”

Hisoka stilled. He wondered which one of his many enemies had finally put a hit out on his name. He figured it would happen sooner or later. He'd killed enough prominent men and women that he was already blacklisted from entering several places. Not that he didn't enter them _anyway_ , since he lived for the excitement. Let them come, he thought. He'd killed enough that he wasn't afraid to kill some more.

“May I ask what brought upon this surprise call?”

“I can't say much right now, but you need to make sure you're out of sight. I'll come to you.”

“You can't.”

“Get your buyer to take you out of the country and I'll meet you there.”

“That won't be possible. This one... she doesn't like me leaving. You won't see me until the week is over.”

Kalluto sighed, but didn't shift his tone of his voice. “I guess that'll work for now. I'll meet you in the auction house at the end of the week then. If the buyer's keeping you hidden away, it may work in our favor.”

Hisoka let a tinge of sadness slip into his voice. “What's going on Kalluto? What's got you scared?”

“Kurapika Kurta,” he admitted rather easily.

The name resulted in even more confusion. Hisoka had heard of him, even seen him a few times at the ballroom dances he'd attended with various dates. He was a lean man of twenty-three, rather short for a man his age, and almost always in a dark suit and wearing an uncanny ring attached to an equally uncanny bracelet hidden underneath the sleeves of his dinner jacket. Hisoka knew he was a bodyguard at several of the events, but he'd also seen him as a participant, and an unknown at others. He didn't know who he worked for or if he was self-employed and an emperor in his own right, but what Hisoka _did_ know was that the man oozed power from every pore in his body. He commanded fear like no one Hisoka had met before, and he did it with an acute level of subtlety. Hisoka would be lying if he said he wasn't a little wet between the legs when he was around the man. He'd get on his knees for him anytime, with or without a cash advance. Kurapika Kurta was his type- powerful and destructive, a wonder of the world that he'd love to dance for.

But Hisoka also knew that his eyes were for somebody else, and unfortunately, he had nothing that the man didn't already have in that woman who was always at his side. That's when Kurapika Kurta earned his respect. She was a short, round woman, always in either a gender neutral suit or a smock, and sometimes she wore a hat. She was also quite strong, level-headed, and had a voice so melodious that it hurt for Hisoka to hear sometimes. They weren't obvious about it, but Hisoka knew his social and romantic cues well enough to catch even the slightest of hints. He thought himself insanely perceptive, unfortunately.

He didn't know the woman's name, and he never asked, but she was always there for Kurta- if not in his vicinity, then close enough that she could run to his aid if need be. The Kurta rarely ever smiled in public, but once, just once, he'd seen the man relax and break into a soft chuckle while the woman spoke softly to him. Hisoka had only wanted to get another plate of shrimp. What he stumbled upon was a scene out of a awfully cheesy movie. It was love. It was the kind of love he wanted more than anything else. It was the soft, tender kind of love that could only be shared between souls who were bonded in heaven before they were sent to Earth. It was the love that wasn't a flagrant display of either of their abilities. Instead, it was the love that struck fear into the heart of enemies and warned those around them that mercy was out of the picture if they ever wanted to pick a fight. It was power linking hands with power and creating a world all for themselves without the influence of anyone else.

He hated it. He hated them both.

“And why does Mr. Kurta want me dead?” Hisoka was beyond curious. This was a man he had never spoken a single word to, and yet, it seemed Hisoka's life was now in his hands.

“Kurta doesn't want you dead, but whatever he's doing to the Troupe is bound to hurt you in the process,” Kalluto deadpanned. “There's something going on here, Hisoka-san. I haven't figured it out yet, but it's got to do with Danchou and his kidnapping.”

Hisoka's eyes hardened and his voice changed into something deep, something monstrous. “What happened to Chrollo?”

“Something no one but the original troupe members are aware of,” Kalluto clipped back. “I didn't even know until last night. They were able to keep it under wraps and get him back, but something's gone awfully wrong.” Suddenly, Kalluto's voice changed. “Please and thank you,” the girlish voice giggled. “It was an honor to serve you, Tiger-sama.”

Hisoka wasn't surprised. A Troupe member must have sneaked into Kalluto's private space. Hisoka snorted. Those bloody spiders were more annoying than patrons who'd forgotten to refill their prescriptions for performance enhancement pills. “Hai, hai,” he sighed. “Later, you explain everything.”

With that, he ended the call and sat placid in the bathroom, though his heart was thundering in his chest and the first inklings of dread being to creep into his heart and spine. He shakily looked around the bathroom and reassessed his surroundings. It was temperature-controlled and without cameras. He'd have to conduct his business with Kalluto from here, it seemed. He thought about going back to take a nap, but instead, he decided to just sit and think.

He now had to deal with a patron who didn't want to fuck him and a Kurta he'd never held a meaningful conversation with.

And more than that, what did that bastard do to Chrollo and Machi?

* * *

Lunch and dinner were timid affairs, but Bisky didn't mind. She'd eaten both times with Wing earlier until he finally left to teach night school, so she spent the meals observing the way Hisoka handled the food and drinks prepared for him. There was a shift in Hisoka's personality, however, but he hid it well so she didn't bother him about it. Again, he ate small portions and took smaller sips. At dinner, he didn't reach for the dessert until Bisky had an attendant cut him a slice of the cake, and even that was barely touched.

She frowned. He was working, she knew. He was keeping up the charade, but Bisky had grown to hate it. She wanted the sun-kissed angel who snored softly and had plenty of scars scattered across his body. She wanted the clown. She wanted an honest answer. But then she remembered that he was bought. There would never be anything honest between them, and Bisky resigned herself to the fate she always knew she'd end up succumbing to.

But she still had six days left. She had six days to make something out of nothing.

That night, she released an inscrutable amount of sleeping gas into his room when he was fully asleep. She hunkered in an hour later, dressed in her best camisole, the pink and soft one that let her lower thighs and arms breathe. When she gazed into his sleeping face, a part of her broke. Upon closer look, his hair was a fine shade of auburn that looked like freshly spilled blood against the white pillow. It was thick and curled around the ends, healthy and strong. He seemed to like sleeping naked, as he didn't bother with giving her a show tonight and simply showered, dried his hair, and went straight to bed. He liked having the covers over his shoulder though, so Bisky couldn't see his beautiful hands.

No matter. She laid down next to him, her weight pressing down on the large mattress. He dipped under her weight and she giggled when she realized she could fit him into her arms. She wondered what his hair felt like, but didn't dare touch it. Carrying him inside was an experience, but it was a necessary one. But claiming his body- that was something Bisky could never do. He wasn't a nameless man she'd met on a hunt, one that closed his eyes and let her do whatever she wanted in exchange for hard coin. If she wanted that, she'd have slipped into a brothel. No, she wanted something more.

She wanted a love story. Even though she knew it wasn't real, she at least wanted to experience what it would feel like to have an angel by her side, one who wouldn't judge her for her appearance or her line of work. And that's all the world ever did- judge her by her bulging muscles and thick thighs, her course blonde hair and her brusque voice. She was ugly; she knew it and she hated it.

But beauty was a price she couldn't pay, not if she wanted to hunt for treasure, and treasure meant more to Bisky than love.

Hisoka didn't much noise. He breathed evenly, his heart rate coming in steady beats. He was comfortable, warm. She stared into his beautiful face until the early hours of dawn, counting the lines on his face, the shifts in his facial muscles, and the amount of times he shifted his body for a more comfortable position. It was only when she saw the first signs of wakefulness that she finally slipped out. She watched him wake from his slumber with some antipathy written on his face. He went straight to the bathroom, only giving a cursory glance to the spot Bisky had spent hours lying on.

She rubbed her eyes, tired as ever. She let Cookie handle the details while she went straight to bed and let her mind take her away to a place where she was a queen and Hisoka her consort.

While she slept, Cookie took several phone calls from a man who wore brown contacts over blood red eyes.

* * *

“ _Aint you afraid?”_

“ _No.”_

“ _Why not?”_

“ _Papa once hung me upside down for a week.”_

“ _Fuckin explains why you did... this.”_

_Hisoka licked the blood off his hand and gave the detective a puzzled look. “Did what?”_

* * *

Hisoka woke up on a bed of flowers. He pinched his face and then put his arm over his eyes. The memory was quickly fading, but he had a hunch it was from that time he got caught eating a raw chicken after he'd killed it with his bare hands.

Hungry. He remembered being hungry. He had been eight.

“Hisoka-san,” a soft voice broke through his thoughts. He shifted his arm over a bit to look up at one of the attendants.

He got up, brushed off the grass and flower petals, and gave the attendant a sugary smile. “Madame.”

She beamed and gestured for him to follow her. “Bisky-chama requests your presence at breakfast.”

He nodded politely and began following her back to the castle. He had left a little after dawn and had refused breakfast. He didn't know when Bisky had her meals, but he was going to keep to the schedule that they'd followed on his first, full day at the castle. Thus, he had woken up, showered, put on some simple clothes, and headed into the forest for a little hike. He made a slight detour for personal business, but that was something he didn't want to think about today, not when he had an impression to make on the crone.

He knew he had cameras following his every step, but he also knew there was no device in the known world that could read his memories. There were devices that could tamper with memories, even make a person forget some things if they drugged enough, but nothing could actively print out copies of the past and go through every experience a person had ever had in their life. Technology hadn't come _that_ far, fortunately.

And things were coming back to life for Hisoka. If there was one thing he hated more than a lazy lay, it was an awful memory from his godforsaken childhood. He hadn't fucked, killed, and clowned his way through life to end up having war flashbacks to a period where he had barely enough to eat, much less money to spend on expensive lip colors and face paints. He inwardly shuddered.

The forest was large and could take months to scout properly. He had less than a week to get as much information as he could. He had found a small clearing full of green grass and an assortment of wildflowers, and deemed that his new nap spot. He typed the descriptions of flora and fauna onto his phone. He made note of the colors, the arrangements, and the way that the trees curved their way up towards the sky. He promised himself he'd climb one of them tomorrow.

He'd obliged to take a nap on the flowerbed after his little exploration and before he was called back for breakfast. All would have went well if his brain hadn't reminded him the reasons why he was so fucked up in his adulthood. He wished his life's story wasn't so damn stereotypical, but there was nothing more to it. He had an awful childhood, and that translated into seemingly worse life decisions, and now he sugared, escorted, and sold information for a living. Sometimes he killed, and sometimes he took therapy trips to a seaside resort to spend hours just dissociating in front of the ocean. He knew he wasn't right in the head, but he couldn't get professionally diagnosed. That would leave another medical record. The state already had a file on a victim who'd been gangraped and had to have multiple surgeries to save his life, but Illumi had helped out and given the doctors a false name to call Hisoka by. But, they still had his blood type, schematics of his body, X-Rays, samples, and of course, the rape kit.

No more traces. Hisoka couldn't afford to leave anything more behind, or else he'd have to blacklist Yorknew from his life forever. He'd left for a number of years after the rape, but eventually he'd returned. Yorknew hadn't betrayed him- Genthru and his lackeys had. What was worse was that Genthru had already paid Hisoka's allowance before he'd stepped into his car. Had the man asked, he'd have readily agreed to group sex, but that's not what he had in mind.

He supposed some people lived for others' pain. Genthru seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed his.

When he settled down in front of Bisky's rectangular glass box, he gave her a polite smile and pushed his thoughts to the back of his mind. He was on the clock. He had a reputation to keep up and desires to satisfy. He couldn't keep going back to the things he had no control over.

“How was your morning?” She asked softly.

He had no idea what she ate inside that absurd thing she brought out every time they sat down for a meal. How they managed to assemble and dissemble that thing in the dining hall of all places, Hisoka had yet to figure out. As for the meals themselves, he couldn't even be sure if she even ate, or if she just stared at him from inside the box while he shoveled food into his mouth. “Fine,” he replied sweetly. “Yourself?”

“I looked at some artwork.”

“Of what?”

“Pretty people,” she said coyly, and he could almost imagine her fluttering her old and wrinkled eyes.

“Prettier than me?” He teased, plopping a piece of fruit into his mouth.

“I have yet to meet someone as pretty as you, Hisoka,” the old woman sighed.

Hisoka hummed and began to eat. He poured black coffee and took it straight. That and fruit had to be one of the worst breakfast combinations he'd ever ingested, but it was a favorite among his other clients, and several of his sugar daddies and mommas. Bitter but beautiful, he'd been told. It was disgusting, but he had several years of practice at keeping a straight face.

“A friend of mine would like to speak to you,” she said after several minutes of silence.

Hisoka smiled but his heart began to thunder in his chest. After all these years, he still felt shivers crawl up his spine whenever his patrons suggested an extra 'friend.' He inwardly prayed that they could negotiate all the terms right now so that he wouldn't have to deal with any surprises later. He'd _hate_ to have to kill a woman with such a grand castle and a wonderful reputation as a faceless warlord.

She was easily pushing sixty, so he could handle her. The friend? Even if they were stronger than him, he'd manage. It was either that, or he'd slit his throat with one of his cards. He'd already taken his life's major loss, so the last stop was death. No one would ever brutalize him ever again.

“And what is it that your friend desires of me?” He posed his most coquettish smile.

“It's not like that!” She exclaimed.

He blinked. Black coffee had spilled on the pale blue tablecloth because of how loud the words had been. He felt his toes twitch because of the volume but he managed to keep the rest of his body and his facial expression poised. An attendant hastily blotted the spill and refilled his cup as he quirked an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

Bisky huffed. “I said no sex, so there's no sex.”

“You never said there wouldn't be sex,” Hisoka tutted. “You said 'nothing,' and sex can easily be 'nothing'.”

“Well, that's not what this is about,” she griped, and he caught a hint of something deeper than just annoyance in her voice.

He sighed with mock listlessness. “And here I thought you'd keep me all for yourself. I didn't think you'd be the type to peddle me out for information.” He could feel her seethe behind the mirrors. He'd definitely struck a nerve or two.

“I don't want to, but... I have to.” She seemed pensive, taking a few seconds before continuing. “He's my friend and he needs your help. You're welcome to refuse.”

Too many surprises meant someone would get hurt in the end, and in their little show, she was pulling out _too_ many of them for it to be a safe bet. “You must care for him very much.”

“I do. He won't take up much of your time. It'll be after dinner, so you don't have to worry about keeping up appearances. He'll be in and out.”

That didn't make Hisoka feel any better. “And what kind of information does he want from me?”

“Some questions about an event that took place some time ago. Anything you don't want to answer, you don't have to.”

“And who is he?”

“The Blacklist mercenary.”

Hisoka blanched. “The chain-wielder?”

“The one and only. His name is Kurapika Kurta.”

Yorknew feared the chain-wielder. There were several stories about him circulating the rumor mill. No one knew who the man was, but he was a legend and the only Blacklist mercenary in recent history to hold down more than two jobs. Hisoka found himself becoming more and more self-conscious of his perceptive abilities. How had he never noticed? Yorknew knew the chain-wielder as an androgynous blonde, and in Hisoka's head, it had been a genderfluid being who he wanted to fight and then fuck at least once in his life. How had he not realized the that the former Nostrade bodyguard was actually the chain-wielding mob boss who'd taken to killing killers of the underground?

Deep down, the clown began to laugh inside his head. Not a single change showed on his face, but his soul was crowing. His soul- his soul was still inside of him, and it was rotten.

Kurapika Kurta had something to do with Chrollo's kidnapping, and now his own life was on the line, but something had crumbled inside Hisoka. His sanity was always on the edge. A mad cackle made its way up his throat but he killed it with a single gulp. He smiled wide and bright, agreeing to the meeting.

Kurapika Kurta would be dead the minute Hisoka laid eyes on him.

* * *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the plot thickens! Next week, the inevitable climax and crossroads meeting between the clown, the queen, and the Kurta. Stay tuned, and don't forget to leave a review! *3*


	5. Sell Me a New Personality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe it was because he was unloved his whole life- that tended to make monsters out of men.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title borrowed from Tokio Hotel's song, "Strange."

Hisoka went back to the woods while Bisky smoked cigars with Wing in the closed off portion of the castle Hisoka would never be able to access. Zushi, Alluka, and a few of their school friends played videogames in the lounge while Bisky and her son gazed out onto the lake bordering the left side of the property.

“Why'd you agree?” Wing's shirt was untucked, like it had been the first day she adopted him, and now, thirty-five years later at the tender age of forty.

She inhaled the smoke and let the the taste linger on her lips. There was opium on her tongue, and it was the good kind. “Gon and Killua face-timed me after Kurta called.”

Wing pinched his eyebrows before sighing. “That bad, huh?”

She blew a smoke ring, watched it float away from her. “They love him like he's family. I don't know him that well, but I know Leorio and he's a good kid with a bright future. They _all_ love him. I can't just say no to those kids. I'm not that strong.”

Wing shook his head and took a long swig of his brandy. “Those kids are also master manipulators, Kaa-chan.”

“You know your mother hasn't functioned logically since you were fourteen,” she huffed. Her barrel chest inflated as she took a long hit. She exhaled and smiled goofily, though the opium and tobacco did nothing to her system because of her weight and build.

“That's because you took up trying to find treasure that didn't even _exist_ ,” he countered with a hint of exasperation.

“I was young,” she sniffed.

“You were thirty-one,” he deadpanned.

She clutched her chest with her free hand in mock shock. “How could you,” she cried.

He rolled his eyes and finished his drink before they both burst into laughter. A flock of birds flew overhead while Bisky took in the view and basked in the comfort of having her family with her. Wing lounged in his chair and stared up at the cloudy sky that threatened rain in the evening. It would be a gloomy sight for normal people, but Bisky and her son were far from normal.

“He's going to kill the head of the Phantom Troupe, Kaa-chan.” Wing kept his eyes fixed firmly on the sky. “Gon wants him to rethink his strategy, but Killua thinks it's better he ends this sooner rather than later. His mental health is getting worse. Melody says he's sleeping three hours a night and spending the rest in the basement with the eyes.”

Bisky finished off the cigar and crushed the stub into a glass dish. “His was a tragedy none of ours can compare to. He can take down the whole Troupe and not a single Hunter will try to stop him.”

“Even with all the bodies he's piled up?”

“Your mother's a murderer too,” she reminded him heartily.

“But my mother's an international superstar,” he chuckled, turning his eyes back to her. “And someone who's been in this game longer than most of the Hunters alive today. He's barely twenty-five. If he goes at this rate, he's going to have a psychotic breakdown and kill someone who isn't on his hitlist.”

“I've set up precautions,” she promised. “In fact, I'm worried Hisoka might do him in before he even lifts a finger.”

Wing looked at his mother with one of his more classic, judgmental stares. “And did your new boytoy _have_ to be a known killer?”

“He's cute,” she pouted.

“He smothered a man to death for calling his lipstick ugly.”

“At least he didn't get caught,” she reminded him.

“He's smart, I'll give you that.”

“And pretty,” she giggled. “So pretty.”

Wing rolled his eyes and laughed despite the morbidity of the conversation. “Do you have enough guards for tonight's meeting.”

Bisky nodded. “I'll be watching from the next room.”

“And what if one of them pulls a gun?”

“All attendants in the room are going to be armed.”

“And you?”

Bisky gave her son a sharp smile. “We'll just have to see, won't we?”

* * *

Lunch was more teasing and talking, but dinner was a rundown of Kurapika's arrival. Hisoka mentally took notes. He already knew the chain-wielder would come with his bearings intact, but all he had were the cards he'd sewn between the fabrics of his clown costume. He'd brought none of his other weapons because the auction house wanted to make sure there weren't any active assassins in the midst. He had his phone, but besides that and the cards, nothing of relevant importance was with him.

Either way, he'd have to kill Kurapika Kurta. He trusted Kalluto, but Kalluto was still young and he wouldn't be able to finish the job in time if he was gathering intelligence simultaneously. Hisoka, on the other hand, had transcended the level of fucks he was supposed to give and now focused on sending a sharp card straight at the younger man's jugular.

But while he was waiting in the sitting room, Biscuit Krueger's cheery voice thrummed through the hidden speakers.

“Don't try anything,” she said plainly.

He quirked an eyebrow, feigning innocence. “I can assure you, I don't approach people unless we've already agreed on an allowance.” That was a lie, of course. If it was someone he truly desired, he'd be on his knees, with or without an allowance. He was an equal opportunity sleaze. That was a fact.

“I meant the sharp cards hidden in your shoes,” she laughed. “Please, don't insult my intelligence.”

He didn't let his surprise show. Instead, he let his brain seethe while his face showed an expression of pure serenity. “Of course not.”

“Behave,” she commanded, and it was the most attractive the old bat had been to him this entire time. His lips curled into a smug smile.

“Or what?” His voice dropped an octave and took up a husky tone.

She didn't answer and he pouted. Leaning back, he thought about whether or not to obey the woman's command. He wouldn't. She was a john in the end. She wasn't one of his long-term arrangements, and he didn't know what she looked like, and he realized that he really didn't care. Her voyeuristic tendencies were her own business, but he had to make sure Chrollo and Machi were safe.

He mentally berated himself for thinking about them in that way. They didn't need his protection. They didn't need him for anything, period. It hurt to think he was _that_ disposable, but that's what he was. He wasn't the silk you bought at the bazaar; he was the rag you used for a couple of weeks and then threw away after the threads started to break down. He'd always known his place in the hearts of those he seduced, but with Machi and Chrollo, he was always ten steps behinds and two seconds too late.

But sometimes, you just had to let loose. Maybe it was because he was unloved his whole life- that tended to make monsters out of men.

Kurapika Kurta came into the room wearing a pressed black suit, brown leather loafers, and his chains. Upon closer look, the man's eyes seemed to glow. There was a hint of red, which was impossible, but Hisoka swore he saw a tinge of it on the edges of his sclera.

“Mr. Morow.”

“Mr. Kurta.” Hisoka got up and sauntered over to the man until he was five feet away.

“I'll tell you something if you answer my questions.”

Hisoka quirked an eyebrow. “And what could you possibly tell me that would be of any use to my private and professional lives?”

“I can tell you how Illumi Zoldyck found you after you made the painful decision of skipping three state-controlled hospitals before you passed out in a non-profit clinic.”

A sharp intake of breath, and then a card went flying towards Kurapika's jugular. Within five seconds, two attendants had guns to Hisoka's head and spine, but Kurta- Kurta caught the card. He dropped the joker, then wiped his exposed fingers on a damp blue cloth that he pulled from the inside of his blazer. A general antidote- he'd come prepared.

“And how your information ended up in the state system despite the fact that you were initially assumed to be a prostitute and put in a private room. A lot happened while you were in those surgeries. I can tell you what if you answer my questions.”

Hisoka laughed out loud. It wasn't the laugh he used when he was at work, but Biscuit Krueger had shown him that this meeting existed both within and outside the realm of his contract with her. She'd kill him if he tried to hurt Kurta again, and he'd be breaking his contract for good if he attempted to go against her wishes again. He put his hands up in surrender for the time being.

The attendants nudged him to move until he was seated on one end of the divan. Kurta sat on the other end. Hisoka smiled while the attendants kept their guns leveled on him. He kept his hands on his lap where they could see them.

“Let me guess, you're going to tell me how Illumi had a hunch I'd be raped, but didn't swoop until he could confirm that my rapist was his target?” Hisoka clicked his tongue. “Try harder, Mr. Kurta. Illumi's always been a workaholic. He had no reason to save a prostitute who could later become a liability. He's not a hero.”

“Except it wasn't Illumi Zoldyck who killed Genthru, Mr. Morow.”

Hisoka's left eye twitched. “And why should I believe you over him?” Hisoka hated to admit it, but up close, the Kurta was even _more_ beautiful. Worse, now that he knew what he really was, Hisoka's body rebelled against him and ached to be embraced by the man who'd managed to hurt Chrollo Lucilfer of all people. Again, he hated what his body and mind craved, hated that they could love so easily after years of abuse. He hated the look in Kurta's eyes. There was pain in them that rivaled Hisoka's, and if a lazy lay was a bad thing for him, then not being the center of attention was a capital crime. Kurapika was a perpetrator, an enemy.

But he was so beautiful and in so much pain, Hisoka thought to kiss his forehead and hold him close.

“Because I was there when the Zoldyck was hired.” Kurapika's words snapped Hisoka back into reality. “Genthru had raped a nephew of a Yorknew born-and-bred entertainment mogul. The mogul commissioned the hit through a middleman, Light Nostrade, who was my former boss. Zoldycks are a hard bunch to find, and even worse at contract negotiations. The mogul put up over thirty billion for Genthru and his lackeys' deaths, even though he had no idea if it was actually Genthru who planned and led the rape. They wore masks with his nephew. I can assure you the old man I met at the restaurant was not the same man you had lunch with last week at the Peacock Club, Mr. Morow. Zeno Zoldyck was the one who was commissioned, not his grandson.”

Hisoka wished he could punch a hole through the Kurta's throat and then rip out his vocal cords. He could caress him later when he couldn't talk, when he could only sit and be Hisoka's puppet prince. “What a lovely tale.”

Kurta looked sad. His eyes were low, looking at Hisoka with such a mask of pity that Hisoka wanted to claw it right off. “Genthru had hired his own man,” Kurta continued, deliberately ignoring Hisoka's comment. “Not to kill anyone, of course- he only wanted to silence you and the nephew. Yorknew overlooks rapes, but it doesn't overlook bodies. Overlooking bodies means the public activist groups get more talking time at the city council meetings, and the politicians can't have that. The bad press isn’t worth it, and neither is being forced to investigate the case of a raped and murdered prostitute. Genthru knew better than to put up a red flag, so he hired a mercenary to offer you and the nephew deals. Did you know Illumi Zoldyck became a Hunter two years ago?”

Hisoka's breathing became stiller and stiller by the second, and he made it obvious enough, but Kurta kept going. “He wasn't there to make you feel better. He was there to give you the option of agreeing to stay quiet with a hefty sum of money, or risk getting your tongue ripped out and your hands chopped off. But, Zeno Zoldyck finished his job first, so Illumi stopped working the assignment. His employer was now dead, so he had no obligation to see it through to the end. However, it was too late for some things. Your information was forced into the state database despite your treatment happening in a private clinic. Although they didn't have your name, your condition and medical history were made available to both healthcare providers and police bureaus- meaning that if you ever end up in a state-sponsored hospital ever again, they could trail you and connect you to the murders you've committed. Not very good for a man who's got psychosis he keeps under control with sporadic killings. You never did get diagnosed, did you?”

Hisoka lunged, but the butt of a gun slammed into the back of his head and had him tumbling down to the floor. Before his face could meet the marble below, Kurapika Kurta caught him. His embrace was softer than Hisoka imagined, and the man cradled him so tenderly that Hisoka wanted to cry. His vision was blurry and his movements sluggish, but he fixed his attention on the chain-wielder he wanted to kiss and kill more than anyone else at the moment.

“You can ask Illumi Zoldyck yourself when your contract with Bisky ends. Now, tell me if Chrollo Lucilfer ever gave you a pair of red eyes.”

Hisoka spat in his face, but Kurta made no motion to wipe it off. Hisoka panted, his head throbbing with pain, his legs jellied and unresponsive of his commands to move. Illumi knew. He always had a feeling, but he never brought it up. Why would he? He had no family and no friends. Illumi was the only one he took lunches with that didn't end in a shopping trip, a party, or a fuck. Illumi brought him drinks, told him about his family, shared what it was that he hoped to achieve in the future. At the end of their time together, they said farewells and went their separate ways, as if they were frie-

Illumi had played him harder than anyone else in his life, and Hisoka let him. Deep down, he supposed he always knew. No one could track Hisoka unless Hisoka really wanted to be tracked, but Illumi had found him. Illumi knew. Illumi knew he would be raped. Illumi knew he only had to wait until after Hisoka was brutalized to come and complete his Hunter assignment. He hadn't been there to comfort him. He had been there to ruin him.

“No,” he slurred.

“Did Machi ever say anything about a genocide that took place in Lukso Province?”

Hisoka shook his head. Lukso Province? He'd never sugared or whored there. He'd heard of a massacre taking place, but nothing more. He was quickly slipping into unconsciousness, the pain of the head wound mixing with the never-ending migraine that existed in the peripherals of his mind.

Kurta took a sharp breath. “Have you ever slept with Chrollo Lucilfer?”

“No,” he said with his last bit of strength. “He's in love with someone else.”

And with that, Hisoka passed out.

* * *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A rather short chapter, but a necessary one to keep things moving. Thanks for sticking with me, guys! We're almost done! Comments are love, and see y'all next week. *3*


	6. Your Love is My Scripture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bisky wished Hisoka knew the real her, but she knew that could never be. They weren’t Beauty and the Beast. She was a warlord with gold to her name, and he a prostitute with a life outside her petty desires.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title of the chapter borrowed from Kanye and Jay Z's "No Church in the Wild."
> 
> Any sections that are italicized are dream sequences.
> 
> **NOTES AT THE END OF THE CHAPTER ARE CRUCIAL FOR UNDERSTANDING THE REST OF THE STORY. PLEASE DO NOT SKIP THEM.**

 

_In his dream, he followed a woman down several different alleys. Music drifted through the damp air, and the more they walked, the closer they were to the trumpeter’s song. He was moving further and further away from the center of his world. The sound was beautiful, but the woman was cloaked in darkness. It was a colorless scene. Hisoka was well versed in these kinds of situations. It could go one of two ways- he'd either reach the woman or the woman would disappear into the shadows and he'd be left at the mercy of his own loneliness._

_He wished the stranger had given him a chance before trying to kill him._

_He was slammed into a dirty brick wall by an unseen force. He put his hands up against the wall and allowed a firm hand to filter through his jacket and trouser pockets. He spied a hat and a set of bluish green eyes so beautiful that he let out a small gasp. The stranger's jaw got sharper with her canine smile, but Hisoka still couldn't fully see her face. A finger floated to his lips to signal him to keep quiet, and Hisoka slipped his eyes shut while the barrel of a gun bore down on the back of his neck. He kept them shut even through the small grunts of pain and the eventual disappearance of the pistol. His belongings disappeared from his pockets, but the strong hands lingered on his waist._

_When he opened his eyes and turned around, the stranger gave him a goofy smile he could barely discern before tipping her hat and skipping away._

_Hisoka felt his pockets and found that his wallet, keys, and mobile phone were gone. However, upon closer inspection, he found that the woman had replaced it with several different objects. He pulled out a pack of his favorite kind of gum, but the foil paper told him it was almost twenty years old. Then he pulled out a piece of cloth splotched with dried blood. He caressed the soft fabric, wondering how the stranger found the piece of fabric he'd lost at sea years ago. He felt around his pockets one more time, thinking that was the end of it, until he came upon something so withered that he thought it would fall apart before he could even pull it out._

_It was an Ace of clubs- the same one he used to kill his mother._

* * *

Hisoka woke to a pounding headache and an IV drip in his arm. Sunlight drifted through the curtains and lit up a room he didn't recognize. A brief glance at his attire told him he'd been changed while he was passed out. The lack of makeup on his face told him someone had actually thought to clean his face. He didn't know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, but he was too tired to figure it out.

He didn't make any moves to get up and get a glass of water, even though his throat was parched. Judging by the hollow feeling in his stomach and the direction of the light, he knew it was well into the afternoon, probably past two. Whatever painkillers they'd given him were too weak and their effects had already worn off. All that was left was the damp feeling in the back of his head and the pain the wound had left behind.

And then, of course, there was his broken pride but he'd taken to accepting these kinds of losses rather dolefully.

He knew he should get up and call for someone to help him. He was thirsty, starving, in pain. His stomach grumbled at him to do something, while his throat itched like it was dusted with sandpaper. The head wound was easily worth three stitches, so he should have asked to have that disinfected and bandaged again. Instead, he stared at the ceiling, starving and in pain. There was nothing on the white wall, so Hisoka drew pictures with his mind. He imagined carousels, cotton candy, food vendors, and colorful jumpsuits. He painted Alia, a gymnast with a tail at the end of her spine, the one she liked to wiggle to freak out the more adventurous of circus-goers. He drew Tob and Hop, the twin fire-breathers who had been his age. Then there was Arc and his band of dwarves who played live music for the audience.

In his mind, they were still alive, still well, still traveling around Hass with their tour vans and rented airships.

A light pattering of footsteps broke his concentration and the vestiges of his past disappeared like smoke disappearing into the night. The ceiling was white again, and Hisoka was still in pain. He didn't look at the attendants who poked and prodded him with their instruments. He didn't make a sound when one of them slipped out the IV and stanched the bleeding. With the way they were working, he supposed it was a sign for him to get up. He did, and immediately they started working on his head. They unwrapped the bandages, disinfected the stitches, applied some cream, and wrapped his head with a fresh bandage. When they were done, they helped him into a wheelchair and rolled him out of the room.

He remembered the time he'd spent in a labor camp after he was tried and convicted of his mother's murder. The nurses there weren't as quick or efficient, and he remembered that with every injury he sustained, he lost food privileges. He had been used to hunger his whole life. The gnawing feeling in his stomach had been a long-time companion, longer than any of his arrangements.

He was wheeled into the dining room that was already bustling with activity. Attendants traveled to and from the kitchen, carrying bowls of steaming food, jugs of drinks, and dishes of one sauce or another. Bisky's glass box sat at one end of the table, and instead of a chair at the other end, an attendant rolled Hisoka's wheelchair into the empty spot and left him to stare at the pink tablecloth his plate and cutlery were placed on.

“You must be thirsty.” Bisky said from her mirrored box. An attendant poured him a glass of cold water and squeezed a bit of lemon juice into it before dropping in a mint leaf. Hisoka stared at the glass, the tablecloth, the silver cutlery he once would have killed to covet. “Please,” he heard her plead.

He broke into a patient smile and bowed his head. He took a polite sip of the flavored water before putting down his glass. He allowed himself a portion of shredded beef that was half the size of his hand, and took a spoonful of white sauce to go with it. “Thank you.”

“I'm not starving you, Hisoka,” she growled from behind her mirror. “Eat the damn food. You're not fooling anyone.”

His face fell and his eyes became twin orbs vacant of any emotion. “And just what were you expecting, cunt?”

She howled with mirth. The attendants soon disappeared through the doors, and finally it was just Hisoka and the beast inside of her self-made cage. He rolled his eyes and downed the water in one go. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and saw that they were still weak when he moved too fast. His breathing came in labored gasps and the pain- the pain was still there.

“Don't overdo it,” she barked.

“You're a bitch, you know that?” He groaned, rubbing his temple and taking slow, deep breaths.

“I could have told you that,” she sing-songed.

He ignored her jibes and let his shoulders sag. He was hungry and he was alive. Nothing had changed. He still had an asshole for a john and he was only three days into his contract. The bloody auction house should have counted the first night as the first day, but they didn't. It was supposed to be a perk of having donated to charity. Hisoka had grown to loathe the beast and her castle overnight, and he wanted nothing more than to be back in his penthouse overlooking Yorknew.

“After you eat, we talk.”

“Is the Kurta intending to press charges?” He drawled, heaping curried vegetables and fried fish onto his plate.

“No. In fact, he sends his apologies for having tried your patience. He'll be sending you a gift later.”

Hisoka snorted. “Tell him to shove it up his ass.”

“Duly noted.”

They ate in silence for close to an hour. Well, _he_ ate. He didn't know what the beast did inside its box, and he didn't care. He ate like an animal. He shoveled food in his mouth with one hand and took long gulps of juice with the other. There was no wine. He still had the drugs in his system, and while he quietly applauded the beast for being so thoughtful, he lamented not having a bottle of deep red to wash down the meat with.

“The contract still stands,” she said while he wiped his mouth and hands with the wet towels.

“Is that so,” he drawled, wiping his fingernails. Gradually, his hunger had abated and a sense of deathly calm came over him.

She sighed. “It was my fault for testing your patience. I apologize. Kurapika should have never been given access, but... outside sources forced my hand.”

“So you're the type to cave under pressure,” he scoffed. He took a bite of his dessert and twirled the fork. “Is that supposed to make me feel bad?”

“You don't have to,” she griped. “You only need to understand that I fully intend to return you to the auction house at the end of the week, as stated in the contract. This... this wasn't meant to happen.”

“But it did, and now I have three stitches on the back of my head.” He folded his hands and smiled smugly at the mirror that reflected only his visage and not the beast's. “You make stupid decisions, become part of the reason why your whore gets injured, and now you want me to feel _bad?_ Biscuit,” he tsk'd. “Just how long have you been purchasing prostitutes? Forty years? Since you turned sixteen and figured out that thing in between your legs liked the feel of a cock instead of a pussy? Tell me, what happens when a whore gets beaten by a high-paying john who then apologizes for being an utter moron?”

“I don't know, Hisoka, what does a whore do?” She groused, her voice growing louder.

She fell for his bait. He smiled widely, politely batting his eyelashes at the creature hiding behind the glass veil. “Smile politely and say thank you, daddy.” The beast went silent while Hisoka licked his lips seductively. “I'm a man of my word. If I'm dead, the Zoldyck on standby will hunt you down after the due date passes. However, if I return on the due date with a few stitches, no one will bat an eyelash. You're not the first john to slap a boy around.”

“I didn't mean to hurt you!” She screeched, and Hisoka caught the pain reflecting in the words.

“Of course you didn't,” he smiled widely. “Your lovely attendants did.”

“I told you to keep your hands to yourse-”

“-as if a victim of such a tragedy could keep their mouths shut while being told everything was essentially their fault,” he drawled, interrupting her rage-fueled response, further adding to her guilt. “Biscuit, please. It doesn't matter if you're sorry. I'm a working man, so I fully intend to finish my business here. Please don't assume you _actually_ know how this all works, Beast.”

An air of silence descended upon the room and Hisoka knew he'd struck the final nerve.

“What did you call me?” The voice from the glass box was low and feral. Hisoka saw traces of the person Yorknew loved and feared. This was a treasure hunter, a part-time soldier-for-hire, an adventurer, an icon.

A beast.

“Beast,” he clipped, taking another forkful of his dessert. “I called you Beast. That's what you are, Bisky, a beast that thinks it can play with fire and not get burned. Oh, I'll do as I'm told. I'll eat with you, roam the forest, lounge in the sitting room and watch television. But, there are conditions, of course. You seem to think I'm in the business of just keeping quiet and playing coy. You're harming my reputation without even knowing it. You can't keep me locked away from civilization just because you're ashamed of... whatever it is you're ashamed of. At your age, you should learn to take a little pride in your possessions. I'm not the type to be thrown into storage until Christmas time. If you're going to purchase my services, you're going to learn to use them as well.”

“Now you're threatening _me?_ ” She balked.

“Don't be daft, woman. I have plans to kill you after all of this ends, but I'd like to make sure that's _after_ the contract is completed and Yorknew realizes I'm worth every jenny of an 8.2 billion jenny buyout.”

“I can break your neck at lightning speed,” she said hollowly.

He shrugged, refusing to buy into her nonsense. “I've met old men who can still fuck right, even past seventy.”

She sighed. “Fine. You can do what you... want. But I won't fuck you.”

“Won't or can't?” He grinned with malicious intent. “There are enough performance enhancement drugs on the black market, Beast. Buy a few. Join me tomorrow night.”

She scoffed, but the feral edge was still there and it was mixed with a hint of sadness. “I'll join you tomorrow night, but I won't be fucking you. You can plan as you please, and the attendants will see to it that you get... whatever it is that you want.”

He played with his dessert fork some more and gave her a heady sigh. “You know, you're fun when you're complacent.”

“I'm humoring you, Hisoka.”

He shook his head. “You humored me when you came into my room and laid down next to me without raping me. That was some humor. What, did you think I wouldn't notice the warmth you left behind on the opposite pillow?”

She didn't answer for several seconds and when she did, her response was short and gruff. “You should have said something.”

“And ruin the fun? Please,” he drawled. “At least you have a conscious, so maybe I won't kill you after this is over. Maybe I'll just hunt you down to whatever corner you decide to hide in after this ends, and maybe I'll just shatter your little kneecaps instead of killing you.”

“If you can catch me.” she laughed drily. Again, that sadness that existed on the subaltern of her voice crept into the forefront of her words. She was slipping, and Hisoka wasn't inclined to catch her. “I'll be going on a tour to find treasure in the Mitene Union,” she stated. “I'm going to travel and hunt extensively for the next few years, fight a little for Gyro, and just... enjoy myself.” To Hisoka, she finally sounded her age- old and weary. “If you can catch me, I'll let you have a fair fight. If you pull some bullshit, I'll break your neck.”

She chortled. “Don't break your back trying to reach me, Beast.”

“You're a rude little shit, you know that?”

“You hired a clown. Please tell me you didn't expect anything more.”

That was the end of the conversation. Hisoka finished off his dessert and the beast stayed quiet in her cage. At the end of the meal, an attendant wheeled him to his room. He didn't bid his host goodbye.

* * *

After they settled him into his bed and left, he immediately got up and smashed the cameras that spied into his room. He knew there weren't any in the bathroom or the dressing room the previous day, but he didn't trust the beast anymore. He spent two hours going through every nook and cranny in each of the sub-chambers that were deemed 'his', from thumbing down the creases of the curtain, to checking inside the zippered covers of the decorative pillows. He even went on his hands and knees and felt for any bugs that might have been attached to the rugs. In the end, he found gas jets, vents, a ladder stored underneath one of the chests, and several reams of paper, along with some stationary. He smirked at the gas jets.

When he'd initially woken up the day before, he'd felt that instinctual need to run. It was the usual feeling he got when people crept into his private space without his permission. Normally, he would have been awake within seconds and ready to kill on sight, but with the beast, he'd expected sex. He would have still been on alert, but he'd have kept his animal instinct hidden beneath bedroom eyes and a sleepy smile.

Instead, he'd woken up slightly agitated, and it was only after he noticed the cooling cloth on the other side of the bed that he realized that he'd slept through his patron's visit. He'd gone into the bathroom and checked his body over for signs of assault and found none. He realized then that she was nothing but an old voyeur, someone who probably couldn't perform like she once used to, and now took to staring at people like they were objects instead of initiating contact.

But still, he'd swabbed all of his private areas, taken hair samples, and urinated into a small jar before packing everything up and sending it off with an attendant who was told to post it immediately. He'd done it in the bathroom, so he knew the beast hadn't seen, and with the conversation earlier, he knew that the beast hadn't gone through the package. By now, Kalluto should have received the results.

She hadn't gassed him to abuse him. She'd gassed him to keep her identity hidden, and to see his face up close without him knowing about it. She was a breed of monstrosity he had no way to control. He'd dated collectors before, but an inkling of fear still managed to slither into his heart and he knew he had to work carefully around this particular being. He knew he'd overestimated his abilities, and though she may have been old, he had no doubt she could actually snap his neck if she wanted to.

All she needed was a gun, and he'd be out. He was strong, quick, but he was still human. One bullet to the right spot, and he was as good as dead. Even a sixty year old crone could take him out.

After debugging his chambers, he went ahead and settled down in the bathroom, sliding against the door until his butt was cushioned against the bathroom rug. Any moment now, Kalluto would call, and if he didn't, then he'd swallow his pride and phone Alluka Zoldyck so he could con her into spilling her brother's information. He knew Killua and Alluka weren't in contact with Kalluto, but he knew that they kept tabs. They had to. As far as they knew, Kalluto was still a belligerent. He may have left the Zoldycks' mountain, but then he'd willingly entered a tribe of thieves. A ferocious need to protect overcame Hisoka, and he was glad there weren't any cameras watching him. Hisoka wasn't always privy to his inner protective instinct, but when he was, he sometimes felt ashamed. A monster like him didn't deserve these kinds of feelings. There were better people out there. Hisoka was sick in the head, and no amount of parental instinct would ever change the kind of person he grew up to become.

The beast shouldn't have drugged me, he thought sourly. The gas had brought the dream while he was napping in the forest. He remembered _her_ , that thing that he'd killed and gone to prison because of, and then he remembered her _again_ when he woke up from the knockout swipe to the head. Maybe he'd forgo shattering the beast’s kneecaps. Maybe he'd just snap her neck and take the bullets as they came.

His phone rang once, and he pounced. “Kalluto.”

“Hisoka-san.” He heard relief in the boy's voice. “Are you OK?”

“Good,” he said plainly. “And you?”

Kalluto seemed hesitant. “I found more than I should have. These spiders... It's worse than I imagined.”

Hisoka nodded. “Chrollo leads them. You can't expect anything less.”

“I had your samples checked. There was nothing out of the ordinary except traces of a sleeping gas. Did you take any photos? If you did, forward them to me and I'll have my contact look them over to see if there are any discrepancies.”

“No need for that.” Hisoka remembered how he'd slept through the rape kit they'd performed while he was passed out in the clinic. He'd gone back and researched what it was that they'd taken from him, but he couldn't take it back. He could barely get his hands on the blood slides. He didn't have that kind of power and capital back then, and when he went back to destroy the evidence after he returned to Yorknew, the evidence was buried beneath years of _more_ rape kits and assault cases. It seemed to be a recurring thing in Yorknew- violating human beings and then leaving them on the side of a road to moan and cry until some passerby deemed them broken enough to report to the police.

“Are you sure?” Kalluto's voice was cold, as if Hisoka had struck a nerve. “You don't have to worry about privacy. My contact works quietly. If anything, I can have Biscuit Krueger's name passed to the federal government and have agents knocking on her door within hours. You don't have to worry, Hisoka-san. I can come get you myself if it comes to that.”

Hisoka was touched. Even if he didn't know the white-haired Zoldyck or the only sister in the family, he knew that neither of them was as human as Kalluto. Kalluto was the youngest. He was the sacrificial goat Kikyou Zoldyck wanted dead for leaving the clan and hiding away. Though he knew Killua and Alluka would never sell him out to the matriarch of the Zoldyck family, he still couldn't trust them to keep Kalluto's secrets safe.

He was just a child. By that age, Hisoka was already an animal baying for blood. “I'm fine, Kalluto,” he said softly. “You don't need to worry about an old man.”

The boy seemed to stumble on his words, realizing that he'd let his emotions slip out into the open. “O-of course.”

Hisoka let out a sorrowful smile. “Thank you. I'm safe, so I'll be home soon.”

“Don't,” the boy backtracked suddenly. “Don't come home.”

Hisoka frowned. “Why not?”

“The spiders.” Kalluto's voice came down to a whisper. “They've been circling your place since...”

“Since what?” Hisoka urged.

Kalluto sighed. “I'm sorry, Hisoka-san. I should have told you earlier, but I didn't want to bother you until I knew all of the details.”

A feeling of dread settled in Hisoka's chest. “What did you find?” Hisoka heard cars honking in the distance and gusts of howling wind. Kalluto was likely on top of a building, hiding in the midday shadows cast by pillars and stonework.

“Chrollo put the hit out on you after he found out you were bid on by Kurapika Kurta. He told Machi and Shalnark to kill you.”

Hisoka blanched. “What?”

“I know, I should have told you,” he said exasperatedly. “But I had to know _why_. It's Chrollo Lucilfer. He's never done anything in his life that didn't have three other motives attached to it. When he ordered the hit, it seemed so out of place. Why would he be angry that a former Nostrade underboss was bidding at a private auction? He referenced intimacy, but I couldn't believe it. The only love he's ever had was always relegated to Troupe members, and everyone knows he never takes lovers. But then...”

Hisoka's heart was in his throat. “Then what?”

“The Troupe hid it well, but seven months ago, Chrollo Lucilfer was kidnapped from a hotel he was staying at. No one knew he was supposed to be there but the Troupe members, Hisoka-san. He was supposed to meet them for a meeting, but he never came down to the lobby. A few weeks prior, Uvogin Ungbold disappeared and it was rumored that he was killed, but no one could confirm it. Then, Pakunoda Jool was found with her heart carved out of her chest. They couldn't deny Uvogin's death anymore, but no one expected Chrollo to get the same treatment. Hazama Nobunaga then defected to find the killer because of what... Chrollo started doing after the Troupe found him half-dead. Hurting a leg was one thing, but the head of the Spider? That was unthinkable, except... Except someone managed to do just that.”

“Kurapika Kurta,” Hisoka said hollowly, and he remembered the hint of red in the man's eyes. Hisoka had met Death yesterday.

Kalluto took a sharp breath as the background noise started to change. He was on the move. “They found him a week after the kidnapping. He was in a ditch, Hisoka-san, naked and beaten. They had him taken to an emergency medical center, and in their haste, they weren't able to set up enough protective protocol to cover their movements. My contact was able to get a copy of his reports.”

“Was he raped?” Hisoka's voice broke, and he could feel a tear slip down his face while fear began to creep into the crevices of his heart.

“No,” Kalluto sighed. “But he was drugged and tortured, and I remember him mentioning that it was in a windowless room. He was hardly human. I... I managed to get the police report the nurses filed before Phinks killed them and cut the hospital's correspondence with the police station. It was bad, Hisoka-san. He shouldn't have survived. There were... chain marks everywhere, like he'd been tied up and hung by his heels. I can't confirm it yet, but I thi-

“Kurapika Kurta is the chain-wielder,” Hisoka confirmed. “It's him. He was here last night.”

“Did he hurt you,” Kalluto asked, his voice so deadly and soft that Hisoka was touched by its underlying concern. The sound of Yorknew's traffic was up close and personal now. Kalluto was likely walking down one of its crowded streets, quickly easing away from whomever it was that was attempting to tail him.

“No.” Hisoka wasn't lying. The beast hurt him. Kurapika Kurta had come for a conversation, but it was the beast that set the foundation for violence to occur.

Kalluto sighed, and Hisoka heard shuffling until the sounds of traffic died down and Kalluto was back to whispering. “Good. It took a while, but I managed to confirm that he was the competing bidder... and that he was the one who kidnapped Chrollo and killed Uvogin and Pakunoda. I also think he's killed Hazama Nobunaga. I was able to trace Nobunaga's steps after his defection, but a month into his disappearance, his tracks just dropped off the face of the earth. I'm sure Kurapika Kurta killed him too.”

“I wouldn't be surprised.” His tears had stopped and his heart rate was normal again, but he felt weak- defeated.

“It gets worse,” Kalluto sighed. “Chrollo was brainwashed. The drugs the Kurta used... they were homemade. I've yet to figure out how he managed to concoct something so unique and powerful. The drugs and torture convinced Chrollo that Kurapika was his husband. He took his imprisonment as some sort of act of love.”

That actually made Hisoka laugh. “He figured murder wouldn’t destroy the Troupe, so he planted a disease and let the infection do the work.”

“He crippled the leader, and then let the seeds of doubt spread themselves. Shalnark wanted to defect so he could rendezvous with Nobunaga and hunt his lover's killer.”

“Did he?”

“He was found poisoned, along with Shizuku, Franklin, and Cortopi. Bonolenov had his hands and feet chopped off.”

“Kurta again?”

“No, Hisoka-san. It was Chrollo.”

Hisoka's stilled. “Chrollo hurt the Troupe members?”

“He died in that room, Hisoka-san. What came out wasn't the same man who gave birth to the Phantom Troupe.”

“He hurt his own family.” He didn't bother to hide either of his emotions; he was both amazed and hateful. Hisoka would hate Kurapika Kurta forever.

“Machi found him screaming for his husband in the dining hall of the Troupe's main warehouse. Shalnark and Shizuku died quickly, but Franklin and Bonolenov were alive, albeit barely. I doubt they'll make it though. Bonolenov's in a coma and Franklin's permanently paralyzed. They'll never be able to function normally ever again.”

“He hurt the people he loved the most, all because of some lie the chain-wielder put in his head.”

“Kurapika Kurta is death incarnate. I... I fear him, Hisoka-san. No one's caught Chrollo Lucilfer his entire life, no matter what he stole and who he killed, but this man... He managed it and then he found a way to take out the _rest_ of the Troupe too. They were Chrollo's everything. Shalnark told me that their leader cried for Uvogin when they finally held the private funeral. That same man poisoned their breakfast and then started dismembering a member who was immune to the poison... All because he thought they were keeping him from his husband.”

“Lukso Province,” Hisoka clipped. “Lukso province, red eyes.”

“There was a massacre there years ago.” Kalluto sounded pensive.

“I can guarantee you Chrollo had something to do with it, and that the Kurta was involved.”

“Should we be doing this? The Troupe is over at this point. I defected the second I found out Chrollo was broken and remaining members have started to fight amongst themselves for Chrollo’s position.”

“Red Eyes, Lukso Province,” Hisoka repeated. “Do you love your family, Kalluto-kun?”

“Why?” He sounded like he was taken aback.

“Do you? You don't have to lie.”

Kalluto seemed to hesitate, but ultimately, he answered. “I do. They hurt me, but I love them all the same.”

“Will you ever forgive them for the things they did... for the way Killua and Alluka abandoned you to your mother's mercy?”

“Killua left us first,” Kalluto corrected him. “He abandoned us first, but when he came back... He rescued Alluka but not me. I think he thought I would always be Mother's puppet.”

“And do you forgive Illumi and Milluki for facilitating your conditioning... for helping your mother hurt you even more after Killua took Alluka and ran?”

“I suppose I'd have to. Killua always loved Alluka, you know, even when Mother and Father insisted she was a boy and treated her awfully for trying to dress and behave otherwise. She needed to be saved, or else she would have died. Killua did just that. Illumi and Milluki... They did what they were taught, and deep down, I think they enjoyed it. They love being a part of that family, and if it meant hurting their baby brother to keep their parents happy, they'd do it again.”

“And you'd forgive them? You'd forgive Illumi?”

“Killua and Milluki, sure, and Alluka, always... But not Illumi-nii.”

“Why not Illumi?”

Kalluto's voice was drenched in the kind of pain Hisoka suffered growing up, the pain of knowing that he would always be alone, always an afterthought.

Always unloved.

“Illumi-nii is our big brother. He should have done better to protect us, but I'm asking for too much, aren't I? Our family was never normal. How could I ever expect my big brother to protect me when my own parents wanted to break me?”

Hisoka got his answer and he filed it away in his head for the future. “I'm here,” he promised. “I'll always be here.”

“I know,” Kalluto said. “I know.”

* * *

Bisky had fallen asleep drunk out of her mind. When she woke up, it was almost the evening of their fourth, official day.

“Hisoka had breakfast in the forest and took lunch in the makeup room,” Cookie said gently while she washed Bisky’s long, blonde hair. Bisky was still half asleep, eyes red and rheumy, skin slack and pale. She was naked, letting her mind swim in an ocean of nothingness.

Cookie clicked her tongue. “Always so sensitive to a pretty boy’s unkind words, Bisky-chama.”

Bisky laughed smugly, taking a swig from the bourbon she'd brought with her into the spacious bathing room. Cookie wrinkled her nose at the sharp smelling liquid, but Bisky pointedly ignored her and kept chugging. The taste was awfully familiar and equally disdainful. It wasn’t the rich and expensive kind Wing sometimes sent her when he found a peculiar taste for sale on the Hunter auction sites. Nope. This was bought off a vendor she’d found hawking his wares outside of a warehouse that hosted illegal fistfights. She’d kept it for a special moment, and today- today was more special than the rest.

After all, very few people lived to tell the tale after insulting Biscuit Krueger.

Cookie sighed and began toweling the blonde locks that fell past Bisky’s shoulders. “You’re thinking too hard about this,” she scolded. “You shouldn’t have fallen for his bait, and you absolutely shouldn’t have told him that we were going traveling to Mitene. You know he’s no ordinary prostitute, Bisky-chama. He could actually put up a fight if he wanted to.”

“He called me a beast, Cookie,” she said in that saccharine, sweet voice that she learned to speak with after years of practice. Her heart, unfortunately, was broken.

“Because we hurt him, Bisky-chama,” Cookie reminded her patiently. “ _After_ we warned him. I’m emphasizing the ‘we.’ We planned the meeting and set it into motion, therefore we’re all sharing the responsibility for the stitches. The best you can do is apologize to him and be cordial for the rest of the week. You can’t just drink yourself into a stupor and cry about it! You’re not a child, Bisky-chama!”

“I’m a freak,” she snarled before breaking into a fit of laughter. Cookie stiffened, and a second later, yanked on a strand of Bisky’s hair. She went from laughing to howling to pain, and quickly turned around to the woman holding a towel and fuming with rage. Bisky gulped.

“You’re not a freak, but you say stupid things, Bisky-chama,” she said deathly quiet. “And over a boy?”

Bisky looked at the beautiful woman sitting on the marble stool and holding a damp, pink towel. Cookie had no family in this world and have never tried to make one of her own. A working woman, Bisky remembered. That’s what Cookie had called herself when she first applied for a position at the Hunter Association and sent in her video interview. She was pretty, clearly fit enough to rule a household, a man, an empire if she wanted- but all she claimed to want to do was work honestly, live hard, and be free.

Cookie wanted to be free and it was their mutual quest for freedom that prompted Bisky to accept her interview and take her on as her assistant mere days later.

“They always did have that kind of effect on me,” Bisky admitted. “Can you blame me? How many men in this world would love something like me?”

“He doesn’t love you, Bisky-chama,” Cookie reminded her, draping the towel over the ledge of the clawfoot tub. “He’s working. You have to respect that.”

“I am,” she insisted, knowing she was lying to herself and her only friend.

“You can’t have a fairytale ending because you’re not a fairy tale princess.”

That brought tears to her eyes, and so she cried. She cried like there was nothing and no one left for her, naked and in a bathtub, a bottle of bourbon an arm’s length away. Cookie ran her fingers through her hair and rubbed her shoulder, but Bisky just cried. She cried like she did the day her father died, leaving her alone and unwanted in a small house made for small people. She cried like she did when she first adopted Wing, overjoyed at the fact that a little Padokean boy who looked nothing like her called her “Kaa-chan.” She cried like she did when she first realized Cookie was her friend.

For Bisky, tears came as easily as her unbridled strength.

She wiped he nose and face with the pink towel and let her voice drop to her normal octave. It was the voice of an old soul, a monster in the eyes of many. "I made a mistake coming back to Yorknew just to fool around and pay for a fake love story.” She stretched her body, the effects of the bourbon wearing off fast. She flexed her muscles, stretched the tired joints that had gone through decades of training, wars, and treasure hunts.

“I made a mistake in pretending he wanted anything more than to entertain me.” She smiled smugly. “I played myself, didn’t I, Cookie?”

“We can all be a little stupid for love, Bisky-chama.”

“And he got hurt because of my foolishness.” She frowned. She'd atone for this. “We’re going straight to the airport after dropping him off at the auction house. Off to NGL. I’m gonna sign Gyro’s contract and hunt those foreign spies he’s been bothering us about. It’ll take a couple of months, but imagine the silence. We can roam the whole country, if we want. We’ll make friends.”

Cookie smiled, the aura of melancholy lifting from her person and dissipating into thin air. “An adventure.”

“An adventure,” Bisky nodded. Cookie didn’t know, but Bisky needed to remind herself that she'd always be a pariah, a monster that was incapable of being loved because of what she'd built herself to be. Love was always a hard thing for her. She loved people platonically and they loved her back, but Bisky was selfish. She wanted something more. She wanted something girls dreamed about as children and grew up to have as adults. But Bisky- Bisky wanted even _more_. Bisky wanted it all. She wanted the gold, the diamonds, the dick, the power, the empire, the castle, the forestry, the lakes, the fists, the brawn-

The world. Bisky wanted the world.

“We’ll call Wing from the border town and tell him to expect us back on Zushi’s birthday week. He’ll be miffed, but he’ll let it go. I raised a good kid.”

Cookie sighed, stepping away from the tub while Bisky got up. At her full height, she was over seven feet tall.

“He’ll tell you that things don’t have to be this way anymore,” Cookie scolded her. “He’ll ask you to sell the property here and buy a place in the city. Or, he’ll ask you to come live with him and Zushi.” Cookie chuckled at the thought.

Bisky gagged and couldn’t help but smile goofily. “The day I move in with my grown son and grandkid is the day you catch me breathing through a respirator, Cookie.”

Cookie laughed, handing Bisky her frilly lingerie and pressed clothes. “I’ll be sure to tell him that.”

Bisky blanched. “Don’t do that!”

Cookie’s laughter echoed throughout the large room while Bisky grumbled and slipped into her clothes. For tonight, she had a sleeveless, red and black frock. It was customized to her size, so it hugged her waist, pronounced her ample bosom, and ended at her knees. The dress was mostly red fabric, but the sides were black cloth peppered with white dots. At the waist were six, black buttons. The fabric stretched across her breasts was also black and dotted, giving off an almost regal vibe. She slipped on black tights, put on heavy diamond bracelets, and sat down on a pillowed chair made from gold and stuffed with goose feathers. She looked into the mirror as Cookie began to do her hair. Later she’d do her makeup, and then she’d bring Bisky a pair of black suede, red soled pumps. Bisky would put them on and then she’d be ready for Hisoka’s show.

The monster in front of her turned more and more into a human, but deep down, Bisky knew she wasn’t even that. She chuckled inwardly. There was no place for a beast in this world. She came into this world alone, and she intended to die the same way. But the soft fingers that pulled her hair into a bun and tied loose strands into braids told her otherwise. And then there was her son, and then there was Zushi. There was Zushi’s girlfriend, a tiny girl named Alluka, and then there were Gon and Killua, and so many others.

Bisky sniffled. She was getting old, way too old for her liking. She only wished Hisoka could see her now, the person he so nonchalantly insulted and referred to as nothing more than a bottom-feeding voyeur.

She wished he knew the real her, but she knew that could never be. They weren’t Beauty and the Beast. She was a warlord with gold to her name, and he a prostitute with a life outside her petty desires. But he was beautiful, she’d give him that, and he was smart. He was kind, in his own awful way, and he was human. He was more human than Bisky could ever be, and she knew that, that was what made her fall in love in the first place.

“How’s that bouquet of roses coming, Cookie?”

“Just arrived from the scientists this morning, Bisky-chama.”

“All twenty stems?”

“All twenty.”

She thought about the blue roses she found in Padokea thirty years ago. They only grew in that one odd region, so far removed from civilization that Bisky thought she was insane when she first saw them. But they existed, and she took only one stem. She had the DNA replicated and now clones of that one flower was manufactured for high-end clients. She never revealed to her employees where she got the original from, and she never would.

Those roses were a beautiful and uncanny sight, but even Bisky knew that nothing she’d ever seen would be as beautiful and uncanny as Hisoka Morow.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a few notes.
> 
> \- Hass is Hisoka's homeland. I know Ishida Sui implied that Hisoka was from Saherta, but I'm not following Ishida's doujin.
> 
> \- In case anyone was wondering, Chrollo's brainwashing is a homage to Thomas Harris's iconic ending in his novel "Hannibal." With a mixture of drugs and lots of unethical conditioning, Hannibal was able to get Clarice to stay with him (Lecter was a serial killer and Clarice was the cop that was hunting him). I understand it's still debatable point on whether or not she truly loved him at the end, but that's besides the point. The key here is that Chrollo's torture is a direct parallel of Clarice's torture and in this story, Kurapika mirrors Hannibal Lecter. If y'all have time, check out Harris's books.
> 
> \- In terms of racial variance, I saw Padokea as a mirror of our world's north Africa and Persia. Hass, in this story, is written in the form of colonial south Asia (pre-partition). Why? I'm brown, I'm a learned scholar, and I love mixing what I've learned to the stories that I write.
> 
> \- Since I spent so much time writing this, I've bumped this fic from eight to nine chapters. This is still a Beauty and the Beast AU. Get ready for a smackdown of pain. Bring tissues next week!
> 
> And if you enjoyed reading this debacle, don't forget to leave me a lovely note! Attention fuels me! Help out a local fic writer by boosting their ego! I promise you, it helps!! :D


	7. Death of a Bachelor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beauty and the Beast have their first and last dance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title borrowed from Panic! At the Disco's song, "Death of a Bachelor."
> 
> Sentences in italics are memories.
> 
> [Fanart](http://list-me-the-reasons-why.tumblr.com/post/157170208932/inspired-by-ch7-of-avas-hxh-fic-blue-roses) for [Chapter 7](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9275015/chapters/21859328). Thank you, [Ren](http://list-me-the-reasons-why.tumblr.com/)!

He put on thick bracelets he’d purchased from his favorite jeweler in Yorknew. Usually, the customization and delivery would take at least a week, but the attendants had brought him his chosen wares in less than twelve hours. He had on a pair of luxury brand bloomers, along with a dark pink tunic that exposed his toned stomach and painted skin. His hair was freshly dyed and styled in a brilliant shade of turquoise, and his makeup was heavy and stark. He stretched his limbs one more time, shaking off the last of the weariness and breaking into a wide smile. His lips were painted bright red with bazaar-brought rouge. The tear drop and star on his face were etched with his fingers. He'd plucked his eyebrows, shaved, and moisturized the previous night while the Beast hunkered away in her part of the castle. He was dressed to impress.

He was dressed to kill.

“Bisky-chama is ready for you,” he heard one of the attendants say. He turned around to one of the many faceless servants that haunted the six-story castle. He bowed politely and followed the man out of the makeup room and into the large ballroom that Hisoka had tailored to his tastes the day before.

He smirked at the dim lights that shed an eerie ambiance over the grand room. The stairs were swathed in rich, pink and red carpet. Heeled, red-soled boots planted themselves at the top of the stairs while Hisoka’s eyes stared down at the glass box placed at the center of the ballroom.

“Oh, Beast~” he called coquettishly.

“Hisoka,” called a reserved voice.

Hisoka's eyes glinted in the dim light. Gone was the tinny voice normally suitable for a twenty-year old college girl. There were no traces of virgin blood in this sound. It sounded more and more like something Hisoka would climb willingly, with or without a cash advance.

He sauntered down the stairs, hand caressing the gold-encrusted handrail. He followed a rhythm in his fingers, swaying his hips to the music in his head. When he was right in front of the box, three attendants behind him set up his workspace while his deft fingers fluttered across the mirrored glass.

“Won't you come out?” He asked sadly. “Just for tonight?”

“No,” she said gently. “But I have a gift for you... and the gift Kurapika Kurta sent.”

Hisoka quirked an eyebrow and stepped away from the glass box. He put his hands on his hips, accentuating the curve of his waist. An attendant handed him a ream of papers but he didn't bother to take them.

“Those are blacklist records and the report Illumi threatened a nurse into filing while you were in surgery,” Bisky said. “Kurapika had all of your information deleted from Yorknew's public servers. He also found your rape kit. That's been left in your room. You can do whatever you want with it. As of now, that nurse's report is the only other record of your rape besides the kit.” Hisoka didn't bother taking it, and the attendant quietly slipped away with it. “It'll be in your room then.”

He controlled his expression. He wanted to sneer, break through the mirrored glass, and strangle the Beast. Instead, he let a bland expression permeate his features and soon began playing with his nails.

“And these are from me.” Another attendant handed him a bouquet of blue roses. Hisoka's eyes widened. “They're the rarest in the world,” she chuckled while Hisoka let his fingers stroke the thorns and deep, blue petals. “They're not as pretty as you are, but I wanted to give you something that's close.”

“Prettier than jewel-encrusted bangles?” Hisoka inquired.

“What do you think?”

Hisoka broke into a shy smile, smelling the clutch of flowers. They emanated an odd sort of sweet- not sharp like some flowers, but not dull either. “Can you eat them?”

“Sure.”

“I've yet to find a place in Yorknew that sells rose milk.”

“I can have a glass made for you.”

He thought about it but ultimately shook his head. “Nostalgia. I'll find some in my own time. But thank you for the flowers, Beast.”

“You're welcome,” she said.

He handed the bouquet to the attendant and he disappeared, no doubt to Hisoka's room to drop off the flowers. By now, Hisoka knew the attendants were done putting in the baroque settee, along with the cushioned benches and assorted items he'd require for the night. Within seconds, everyone else had disappeared, and there was only Hisoka and Bisky.

“I'd like to hold you close, but you're adamant,” he started. “But by the end of the night, I'll be in your arms. I promise you that, Beast.”

“I thought you wanted to kill me.”

He frowned. “No one said I couldn't kill you _after_ I made love to you.” He stepped over to the box and felt the cold glass. “Tell me, Beast. What are you wearing tonight?”

She seemed to hesitate. “A dress.”

He rolled his eyes. “Come on, Beast. You can do better than that.”

“A red dress,” she said exasperatedly. “The front has two sides that have black stitching with white dots. Six buttons on the waist, sleeveless, square collar, knee-length.”

“Jewelery?”

“Bracelets.”

“Hosiery?”

“Tights,” she griped.

“Hair?”

“Tight bun, hair braided around the bun.”

Hisoka's lips curled into a smile. “Shoes?”

“Black pumps with red soles. Happy?”

He broke out into a fit of laughter, earning the chagrin of his patron. He could feel her fuming inside the box and he really, really wished things hadn't gone to shit because she was cute. In her weird, awfully secretive way, Biscuit Krueger was cute.

“Looks like you're dressed for a night out on the town,” he teased. “You can still come out and let me make it worth your while, Beast.”

“Not a chance,” she huffed.

He shrugged. “Have it your way then.”

The lights were already dim but with a snap of his fingers, they further dimmed, and then suddenly a shock of dark blues and reds started to flutter in and out of his vision. The LED lights flickered on and off, bathing the room in tension. The flamenco music he'd painstakingly chosen earlier began to thrum throughout the ballroom. He let his body flow to the pace of the music, fast and reaching its crescendo quicker than Hisoka would have liked. Yet, he'd chosen it specifically for its difficulty. His movements were only as languid as his thoughts, and as soon as he'd become one with the song, his feet tapped furiously to the claps and strums of the guitar.

When the masked man grabbed him by the waist and joined his movements, he moaned from the bottom of his chest, enjoying the feeling of the warm crotch grinding against the base of his ass. Thick hands groped his chest and a tongue licked his throat while he continued to move his hips to the vibration of the music. A hand then traveled to his throat and squeezed just enough to elicit a pant, but not so hard as to hurt him. He turned around, and with that, the music lowered in volume and transitioned into the next song on the playlist. He pushed the prostitute onto the black settee he'd bought off a baroque furniture dealer. After the man was on his back, Hisoka turned back to his patron. He sat on the man's crotch and began to grind his ass against his bulge while keeping his eyes dead on Bisky's glass box.

“Do yourself a favor, Beast,” he purred. “Follow my lead.”

* * *

 

Bisky wanted to know who the fuck issued for prostitutes to be allowed onto her property, but then she remembered that she'd given the clown bastard free reign over her forest and her credit card while he was here.

He'd brought prostitutes to torture her. He was honest-to-God about to fuck a man right in front of her because she'd refused his advances. He was going to come and get came on, all in on sitting and right in front of her eyes. Bisky's wrath bubbled underneath the red and black fabric of her dress.

A minute later, a masked woman came down the stairs. Bisky gawked as she realized it would be a threesome. The woman had onyx colored skin and was as nimble as a dancer. She undressed, leaving only the black mask on. She began kissing Hisoka's face and clutching her breasts while Hisoka groaned and continued to grind his ass into the masked man's crotch.

“Touch yourself,” he panted.

“Absolutely no-”

“Now,” he commanded, and Bisky saw the malice in his eyes.

She spread her legs and hiked up her dress. She didn't bother taking off the tights, and instead ripped a hole where her crotch was. She tore aside her panties and began rubbing her slit with an urgency.

“Moan for me, Beast.”

And she did. She worked her fingers while the black woman worked off Hisoka's tunic and the masked man undid his bloomers. The clown’s whole body was painted the stark white color of his jester's paint, and Bisky panted earnestly as she watched the woman bring his cock to life with a few solid strokes. He then sauntered over to the glass box. Bisky's legs were strewn open, her fingers working quickly as she marveled the man before her. But her attention then went to the black dildo the masked man was holding.

Her eyes bulged. It was an exact replica of Hisoka's erect cock.

“Use it,” he commanded, and the masked man slipped the dildo into the port she knew she didn't tell anyone about.

She stopped her fingers and watched as the clown returned to the settee. First, the masked man finished undressing and settled down on his back while Hisoka climbed on top of him. The woman fell to her knees and began to suck Hisoka's cock while he let his hands roam the man's chest, his hips grinding against the bulging cock.

Bisky shakily took the dildo into her hands. She didn't have lube, a condom, or even a napkin. She used her spit to wet the silicone head of the replica and began bobbing her head up and down to the rhythm of the woman who was earnestly taking Hisoka into her mouth. Bisky deep-throated like a champion, decades of experience under her belt suddenly coming back to life. She groaned, the insides of her thighs soaking wet, her clit begging for something to rub against. Hisoka came in the woman's mouth, and within seconds, Bisky came while her mouth was wrapped around the head of the toy.

She wiped her mouth and followed their movements. Hisoka got on his knees on the settee, face down and ass up. The masked man got behind him while the woman laid down in front of Hisoka, her legs on his shoulder. The clown turned to Bisky once, winked, and then dove in between the masked woman's legs while the man behind him began to finger his ass. This went on for several minutes, minutes that Bisky spent ripping off the rest of her tights, kicking off her pumps, and positioning the dildo right underneath her cunt while her dress was hiked up to her chest.

Bisky eased down on the dildo when Hisoka rose from in between the woman's legs and wiped his mouth with his dainty fingers. He ripped open a condom packet and slid the rubber over his cock. Within seconds, he'd flipped the woman over and used her curly black hair to position her onto her knees. He pushed his cock deep into her pussy with a grunt. The masked woman groaned, adjusting to his length while the masked man followed their rhythm and replaced his fingers in Hisoka’s ass with his tongue.

As the man adjusted his face in Hisoka’s ass, Bisky screamed. Another orgasm was building in the pit of her loins, and she was close to bursting at the seams. Hisoka gave her a sly look, eyes gleaming with morbid fascination at the sound she’d just made. But the look only lasted for a few seconds. When he noticed that the masked woman had finished adjusting to his cock, he began applying slow, deep thrusts. The masked man remained on his knees, his face jolting deeper into Hisoka’s ass with every one of his thrusts. The black woman keened, grasping at the settee’s sheer fabric while Hisoka’s thrusts picked up their pace.

He had one hand in the black woman’s curly frills, another clutching her waist, his hips thrusting and rolling to whatever rhythm he deemed necessary. Somewhere along the way, the music transitioned into a tango tune. The woman was pushing back earnestly right now, panting with each breath while Hisoka tugged at her hair whenever she tried to muffle her groans against the settee. Colors contrasted on a level Bisky could barely fathom. White paint, black skin, tanned skin, masks, blue and red lights, smoke, music- senses clashed and Bisky clit screamed for release while she rode the silicone cock into oblivion.

And Hiskoka- his face was a mixture of bliss and concentration, his hips working against the masked woman’s ass with the patience of a god. When it was time for him to finish, he yanked the black woman’s hair so hard that she ended up ramrod straight. Hisoka tongued her ear and massaged her breast while he slammed his length deep into her pussy. His fingers were crooked in between her legs, furiously scissoring her mound while the masked woman moaned and pushed against his cock. She left deep scratches on Hisoka's thighs, drawing blood while she moaned.

Bisky's thighs were quickly cramping in the enclosed space, the smell of her cum suffocating her senses. Her vision blurred and sweat dripped down her face while her bun and braid came undone. She pushed the blouse piece down and freed her breasts, clutching at the thick, round mounds while she bounced on the toy.

Hisoka's last few thrusts were rough and deep and Bisky moaned obscenely while she came on the silicone cock. Her thighs shook and her back hurt from being in such a small space, but still, she couldn't keep her eyes off the man who slipped his cock out of the woman, tore off his condom, and came on the faces of both masked prostitutes.

Afterwards, the man and woman each gave Hisoka a kiss on the cheek before going up the stairs and disappearing. Hisoka laid down on his back and hummed a tune Bisky couldn't quite place. The colorful lights and music turned off, and the original, dim lighting of the ballroom came back on.

“My gift to you before our final battle,” he told her, yawning and stretching his sweat-soaked limbs. “Enjoy the buzz, Beast.”

And with that, he bid her goodbye and sauntered up the stairs and away from her sight.

* * *

 

He never went into the forest this late at night, but after a choreographed fuck and jittery fingers that begged for a good cigar, Hisoka decided that he needed to escape the castle as soon as he finished washing away the sweat and makeup.

He’d spent over an hour in the bath, painstakingly cleaning up every nook and cranny of his body until his skin was raw. He was back in his real skin, four shades darker than the chalk-white paint, and one step closer to an eternal sleep because of how long it took to clean up. Usually, he could finish within twenty minutes, but for some reason, his mind was muddled with thoughts about anything and everything, almost as if he was slowly being put to sleep by an unknown force. He knew there weren’t any drugs or gases in the bathroom or in the water, but he still felt shaky. He’d done a onceover in his chambers to make sure the gas jets were still plugged and the cameras destroyed. He was clean, the room and water were clean, and the air was fresh.

And yet, Hisoka's mind thrummed with nonsense.

He put matches, stationary, and a fire extinguisher in a bag, while the report and rape kit were tucked underneath his loose, cotton shirt. He didn't open the rape kit, which he knew was useless at this point because his DNA had long since degraded in the flimsy bag. The nurse's report, though, Hisoka had leafed through that while he'd soaked his feet in the tub. Then he'd read the details of the deletion of his records. It seemed Kurta was a world class Blacklist hunter after all. He'd typed out every line of code he'd used to cut his information from the public database and wrote down every step of how and where it could be accessed since deleting information from the Internet forever was impossible as of now. Still, Kurta had created comprehensive steps to encrypt it and hide it in the deeper bowels of the web, with only one copy of the instructions. Those instructions were in Hisoka's hands. Kurta claimed that he'd never tell a soul, apologized over and over again, and when Hisoka had, had enough of the apologies, he flipped to the end. There was nothing but a blank page. For Hisoka, that was the end. For Kurta, it seemed to be the end as well.

When Hisoka reached the flower bed, the first thing he did was drop the items and lie down. It was cold. Hisoka let his tired limbs soak in the frozen warmth of the flowers and the grass, let the stems and petals tickle his brown skin and ease the tumult in his mind.

He was lonely. At the end of the day, that was the only thought that wouldn't leave him, ironically, alone. He'd managed to suppress everything else- the crimes he'd committed, the people he'd conned, the shows he's performed in, but for some reason, he never quite forgot how fucking lonely he was in the world. He began to laugh, but it wasn't the deep, clear laughter that he used when he was truly tickling with mirth. This was hollow. Shaky fingers pressed against the skin over his heart, and he wondered if the steady beat was real. It didn't feel real. He'd put on sex shows before and, even let an audience member or two join in, but pussy on his tongue and fingers in his ass still didn't fill the emptiness in his chest. It was a real problem now. Before, some cigars and some sleep would make him forget his worries, but the older he became, the more useless the tobacco became. In fact, it had been over a year since he'd had an opium-soaked cigar, almost five years since he’d smoked the opium through a pipe. Cigars came and went like seasons, but then again, so did his dissociative periods. It seemed like his mother was finally catching up to him, that awful cunt.

It had been years since he danced the flamenco with a man or a woman, but tonight's sham didn't count. He wanted to _really_ dance. He wanted to find a pretty girl with bright red flamenco heels, and he wanted to take her spinning. He wanted a man to slide up behind him and press Hisoka's back against his broad chest while they swayed to an orchestra. He wanted to paint only his face, and expose the taut musculature of his abdomen and the sun-kissed glory of his brown skin. He wanted his ankle bracelets to clink, wanted shimmery pink cloth to swathe him and save him from the pit of despair he'd never quite crawled out of.

He wished the Beast had come out and danced with him. Even if she was old and could no longer move like she once did, Hisoka would have still taken her into his arms. She was a bitch, a catty thing he'd have to fight for dominance, but she was... nice. Hisoka's laughter petered out and he blew a raspberry. He hated the Beast, but he both hated _and_ liked her. She'd put on a pretty dress for him. She didn't hurt him, and when he got hurt because of his own stupidity, she apologized. No one had ever apologized to Hisoka for something that was his own fault, and yet the Beast had.

He’d decided a long time ago that he’d never kill Biscuit Krueger. He hated her, despised the fact that she put him in a position where he was perceived as a weakling, but she’d never tried to really hurt him. If anything, she seemed to care. Deep down, Hisoka supposed he did too, but he was the petty kind. He knew he’d still threaten her over the rest of the week, but once she dropped him off at the auction house, that would be the end of their relationship. He’d bid her goodbye and never turn back.

He'd go back to Lionel, maybe start networking more in Hunter circles and gain entry into other Hunter homes. He remembered Bisky’s kindness. She was nice to him when others would have put a bullet in his head for being a nuisance. Bisky had played along instead. There were jewels, money, and furniture waiting for him to take home at the end of the week. All of the trinkets, the clothes, the shoes- they were his. Nothing borrowed, nothing returned.

He chuckled. The old bat could have been a long-time arrangement. Too bad that she was busy hiding inside her box. Hisoka huffed. He should have broken the thing and laid the blue roses beneath the broken mirrors. Then he should have taken her hand and led her to the empty space in the ballroom and just danced. Maybe the Beast couldn't walk anymore, but in that case, Hisoka would have carried her. He hadn't judged by skin, ability, or gender in a long time. He just wanted someone to spend some time with, and even behind her mirrors, the Beast had given him time. He'd have liked to pay her back with a dance, and maybe even given her a traditional Hassian jester routine.

But she stayed inside her box, and the show went on. It was sad, but it was their reality. Tomorrow, he'd join her for meals and spend the rest of the day shopping. He'd rinse and repeat until it was time to go home. They weren't Beauty and the Beast. There was no happy ending here.

He got up and began to dig a pit into the flowerbed, ruining the beauty of one of the few places he found solace in on the castle grounds. After he deemed the pit worthy, he threw in some stationary, the rape kit, and then the ream of papers that Kurapika Kurta sent him. He struck a match and flicked it into the pit, watching as the nurse's report and the Kurta's apologies burned first. Then, the plastic bag containing his rape kit started to sear. He dropped in the rest of the stationary over the next few minutes, watching as the flames licked and burned away his past for good.

He'd never return to Yorknew. He'd pack up his belongings and go as far away as feet would take him. Maybe he'd visit Padokea. Kakin sounded awfully nice this time of year too. There were princes there that would lick his toes, if only he batted his eyelashes. Maybe he'd go to border towns, immerse himself in cultures that shared more than one land. He could give up sugaring with the elite for a little while, since he definitely had more than enough money in his bank accounts to live comfortably over the next three lifetimes. Maybe he’d go join a circus troupe, brush up on his crowd-controlling schemes with his elaborate tricks and pretty face. He wanted to jest and juggle again. Maybe he'd take up lovers instead of arrangements. Maybe he'd keep two or three instead of one. Maybe he could find love. He had forever at his feet, after all.

**BAM!**

The fire extinguisher slammed against the back of his head. His vision blurred and he almost fell into the small pit, but the asshole that hit him caught him by the back of his collar and tossed him to the side. He saw Phinks extinguish the flames, Feitan a few feet away from him. He hadn't seen these bastards in years.

“Long time no see, whore,” Phinks jeered, kicking at the smoke rising from the smoldering ashes of the rape kit and papers. His eyes were burning with the kind of malice Hisoka only experienced when he was high off a good murder, but the light sprinkling of white dust under his nose told Hisoka that it wasn't murder Phinks was snorting before he and his pal jumped him. “At least you can die knowing whatever the fuck you were tryna burn actually burned. What the fuck was it? Child custody papers? You kill the girlfriend and baby and now you tryna burn the evidence?”

Feitan rolled his eyes and kicked Phinks in the back, effectively shutting him up. “Stop talking, you're embarrassing us both. Snap his neck and let's go. Machi's waiting.”

Hisoka felt the blood on the back of his head soak into the collar of his plain white shirt. His stitches no doubt reopened, and blue hair and red blood was a morbid sight Hisoka only used when he did his sad clown routine. Death in the forest? It sounded so _tacky_. Hisoka wanted to die laughing. He'd been born in misery, grown up in misfortune, and then spent years in jail for murdering an abusive cunt he was too afraid to fight when he was a child. He'd bled far too much over the years to die cowering beneath a blonde fueled on cocaine and a goth asshole who was pushing forty.

“Machi wouldn't do this,” he croaked. As his voice broke, his mind and vision cleared. Maybe it was the adrenaline, or maybe it was his hatred for these two. Either way, if Death had a date with him tonight, then it would be getting a three-for-one deal.

Feitan gave him a look of pity. “I'd torture you, but she specifically requested that I didn't. And if it's anything, she does feel a little bad.”

“You're not worth Danchou's life!” Phinks snarled. “The only reason you're gonna go quietly is because we gotta save Danchou! Any other day, I swear to fu-”

“Tell me,” Hisoka interrupted, slowly getting to his feet. “Did Chrollo ever love me?”

Phinks gaped, giving Hisoka a look of sheer incredulity. “Of course not! What the fuck kinda question is that?”

“No,” Feitan stated. “Neither he nor Machi ever loved you.”

“All those people I killed.” Hisoka spat out some blood and wiped his mouth. “I killed for them. I killed for Chrollo and Machi.”

“You only assassinated thirteen people for them, Morow. Your personal record is over two hundred. Please tell me you didn't _actually_ think a few hits were considered an invitation for sex.” Feitan shook his head. “You were never supposed to be involved, but that damn Kurta. He bid on you and Danchou lost his shit. Now there's intel that you spoke to Kurta, and who knows what you told him? All of this- it had nothing to do with you and yet you _still_ managed to find a way into the situation. How does that keep happening?”

If Hisoka could cry, he would. He remembered the first time he met Chrollo. The man was a head and a half shorter than him, but he commanded a presence far too powerful for someone like Hisoka. And Machi. Machi was the most beautiful woman he'd ever met in his life. He was injured after a rough night of sugaring, and she'd offered to stitch him up for a price- kill a man in the dead of night. Hisoka had fucked, killed, and destroyed his entire life- this wasn't any different.

But he never expected to fall in love with the man who'd tattooed old symbols onto his forehead, or the woman with the quiet demeanor and a brilliant shock of pink hair. He'd fallen in love twice over, and he knew they would be his ruin from that moment onwards.

“You've killed more people than the hits we ordered through you,” Feitan said. “And yes, _we_ ordered the hits. All of us. The Phantom Troupe is a family, Hisoka. You were never a part of that.”

“And now it's time for you to die, whore!” Phinks reached for Hisoka's throat, but a swift uppercut knocked him off his feet.

Feitan cursed underneath his breath and reached inside his jacket for his weapon, but Hisoka was too quick. He punched Feitan straight in the chest, sending the older man back a few feet. He didn't let Feitan rise. He jumped on him and began bashing his head in with his fists. The older man sputtered, trying to reach for his knife, gun, phone, whatever the hell it was, but Hisoka didn't let him. His fists flew to a rhythm he couldn't control.

_Remember how you killed Mama, Sooka?_

He killed Mama. He killed his mother. She'd hurt him every day of his life for fifteen years. He'd thrown a sharp Ace of clubs at her throat and killed her instantly, but in prison, he killed men and women with his fists. There was a rage in his heart that he couldn't control, a rage that had festered over the years but stayed quiet because Hisoka fed it souls here and there. He just wanted to be loved. Was that so hard? Was it so hard for someone to look at him and see a person and not a creature from the deepest depths of hell? Why didn't Mama ever take care of him like a normal mother? Why did Father make him fight with his bare knuckles when he could hardly stand? Why didn't the Beast come out of her cage and take his hands and hold them?

Just how ugly was he? Hisoka didn't want to know. He didn't want to know why he was still punching Feitan's face when he knew that the man had died after the first two minutes of his onslaught. There was bone and blood beneath Hisoka's fingers, hair and teeth stuck to his skin. A monster. Hisoka was a monster and no amount of love would ever change that.

He didn't feel the bullet at first, but when he saw the red patch grow in circumference on his chest, he knew Death was approaching at last. At least he'd be taking Feitan with him. He slumped to the side and turned around to see Phinks holding a pistol. His nose was running blood and he was crying.

Hisoka gurgled and smiled. “At least he went knowing that you loved him,” Hisoka told the blonde who could barely hold himself up. “He was like a brother to you, wasn't he? Took care of you when you were hungry and small until you outgrew him.” Hisoka hummed, feeling his life slip away with his blood. “Machi told me after an assassination. She was injured and a little high on painkillers. Don't worry,” he told Phinks. “She told me because she loved you both.”

Phinks never got around to shooting the second bullet because a red blur took him down in milliseconds. The gun clattered out of Phinks's hands and Hisoka had to squint to see who it was that dared to run up on a man holding a gun. Phinks's arm went flying, and then a leg. Blood splattered the scene, but Hisoka's eyes hurt and his chest was heavy. He felt bad. He wanted to say goodbye to Kalluto before he left, help him erase his identity so he could live free. He wanted to visit Hass again, see if the members of his old circus troupe were still alive. He wanted to spit on his parents' graves and tell them he'd survived when they thought he wouldn't. He wanted to live. Hisoka wanted to live.

She wore a red dress. The front had two triangle slits that were stitched with black cloth and dotted with white spots. Her feet were bare. He spied pink nails and sculpted thighs. When he looked up, he saw a woman with loose, blonde hair. She had clear, pretty eyes, and she was tall. Hisoka would have to stand on a crate to kiss her lips.

Six buttons on the waist, a sleeveless ensemble, a square collar, and fabric that only went down to her knees. She was the most beautiful woman he's ever seen in his life. She was a goddess- an angel.

She picked him up and hugged him to her chest. He felt bad. His blood would stain the soft, red fabric and the dress was too pretty to be soiled. He knew he was bleeding out in her arms, but in the end, he allowed himself this selfish gift.

“I didn't know you were so cute and strong, Beast.” He whispered, blood and spittle lacing his every word.

She kissed his forehead and he felt something warm bloom in his heart. She'd saved him when he deserved nothing more than Phinks's second bullet. Now he was bleeding out in her arms, but for some reason, it all felt _right_. It felt right for him to be so close to her, to let Death take him when he was in the arms of someone so strong, so gentle.

“Thank you.”

He didn't know if she heard him, but he hoped she did. Soothed by her heartbeat, he fell asleep in her arms.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [This](http://gloimg.twinkledeals.com/td/pdm-product-pic/Clothing/2016/10/20/source-img/20161020173839_11735.jpg?20141203001) is Bisky's dress.
> 
> Read and review! *3*


	8. Let the Silver Voices Guide You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night bell tolls for the living dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Phillip LaRue's "One the Other Side."

She found him sobbing in his room, asking why Kurapika hadn't come home yet. Broken photo frames and vases littered the blue carpet. His precious bookshelf was in shambles. Torn pages littered the bed and marble floor, ripped spines tossed haphazardly across the blue carpet along with the shards of glass and ceramic. When she stepped into the room with his food, he looked up at her with sorrowful eyes.

“Did he come home?” He asked brokenly, his voice wrecked after days of ceaseless crying and screaming. She held back her own tears as she placed the dinner on a chair and slipped a syringe out of her blazer pocket.

Chrollo snarled and jumped, but the restraints she'd put on his ankles snapped him back. He howled in pain, the chains keeping him in place while she moved swiftly across the room. She couldn't hold it back anymore. She cried with him as she grabbed him in a bear hug. She stabbed the needle into his arm while he screamed, the benzodiazepine flooding into his system. He struggled some more before he finally began to sag in her arms. She didn't stop crying even when he did, soaking his collar with her tears and snot.

“Tell me, Machi: did they scream when you carved their eyes out? How about when you tortured the children? Did they cry for their parents? Their brothers and their sisters? Did you stand by and just watch?”

She looked up to see a man dressed in a plain black suit. He wore red moccasins, a white shirt unbuttoned at the top. Red eyes brighter than her pink locks stared into the depths of her soul. She spied dark circles painting the edges of the younger man's eye sockets. Machi had seen Death many times over her thirty years. She'd fought it when she was a child, the hunger and violence gnawing at her skin and bones while she crawled from space to space in the bowels of Meteor City. She had fought it from one assassination to the next, across every robbery she'd ever committed. All these years and she wasn't afraid to admit that she'd lost count. Who wouldn't? She'd been doing it for so long.

She tried to remember how many people they'd killed in Lukso Province that day. Was it one hundred? One hundred and fifty? How many of them were children? What happened to the women? Had anyone in the Troupe committed rape? Did Feitan torture the elderly?

She didn't remember. They'd done it so many times, the events blurred into a single hodgepodge. All she could really recall was the blood. They'd spilled so much blood. God, why did they spill so much blood?

Kurapika Kurta shook his head. “Tell me you at least remember how many people _you_ killed, Machi.” When she didn't answer, he sighed. Stepping into the darkness of the room, she gazed upon his lithe form. He looked like he could crumble with a heavy gust of wind, but she knew those long legs and pretty hands could bend even God himself to his will.

“This is vengeance in its purest form.” He spoke softly, as if she was a child. “You could have thieved and frolicked across the continents, but you didn't have to commit genocide. Kurta who'd left the clan before had already worked with scientists to reveal the secrets of our eyes. Did you know, it's just one mutation that causes the red? It's actually pretty easy to replicate on DNA. They tried it with monkeys and mice and it worked. I'm sure somewhere out there, they're cloning them for wholesale on the black market.”

He looked at her with sunken eyes, as if he hadn't slept in weeks. She could still see the traces of makeup that might have covered up the dark circles during the day, but he'd wiped the cosmetics before he walked into their warehouse. This was the real him- a pale, red-eyed God of Death who was the root cause of her family's destruction.

“But you didn't know that, did you?” He whispered, his gentle fingers caressing Chrollo's greasy black hair. She snarled, pulling him away from the monster.

“And so you killed them.” He sighed again, as if the weight of the world had all but broken his spine. “But then again, maybe you did know. Maybe fencing the originals ended up being more tantalizing. I wouldn't know. I didn't ask him when I loosened the dogs on him.”

“We let Uvogin eat the crippled boy's heart,” she hissed.

Kurapika cocked his head to the side. “And what did you do with his body?”

She spat at him, still holding Chrollo's half-conscious figure in her arms. “We broke his body down with acid and threw the slush into a ravine. We couldn't leave that many bodies lying around or else the neighboring towns would smell the rot while we were still escaping, so we chemically degraded a few. But I remember the cripple- he cried for you.”

Kurapika stayed silent for a few minutes, and in those minutes, Machi prayed earnestly for Phinks and Feitan to appear and take down the monster who'd ruined their lives. She prayed to all the gods that were peppered throughout Meteor City. She prayed to the gods of the old religions. She prayed to the gods penned in Chrollo's books. Wasn't there someone out there? Anyone at all?

“Pairo,” the Kurta whispered. “His name was Pairo. He was my friend.”

She grunted, cradling Chrollo in her arms. “So he was.”

“If you had treated Hisoka Morow just a little bit better, he could have been your friend too. He loved you both. You knew that and used it against him.”

“What do you care about Hisoka Morow?”

“I owe him an apology,” the Kurta admitted. “I sent him two yesterday, but I feel like I need to make this right.” He seemed pensive about his next words. “He killed his mother. She used to whore him out when he was a child, but he didn't quite understand it then. He has a record from a penal colony in Hass. He told the court everything, and they pitied him so much that they didn't give him the death penalty. A man like that should never have been able to love ever again, but he managed to love you both.” Kurta looked at Machi with such haunted eyes that Machi's throat suddenly became dry. The thought of those eyes following her forever caused a shudder to crawl up her spine. “He loved you both so much.”

“He doesn't have it any worse than the rest of us.” She licked her dry lips, remembering the clown who never looked at her wrong, who always extended a hand with some semblance of affection. “Everyone suffers. Life doesn't care if you're a clown or a thief- we all suffer.”

Kurapika Kurta wrinkled his nose. “You couldn't even do him the honor of protecting his name against your Danchou. You even sent killers after him while he was at work. Not that, that helped. Phinks and Feitan are dead.”

Her blood froze. “What?”

“His patron was Biscuit Krueger, someone your lot could never hope to defeat in an honest fight. Melody told me Feitan's head was bashed in. Phinks? Torn to shreds. They're at the county morgue right now.”

Her blood ran cold and her heart rate slowed. She remembered her brothers, the friends she'd lost, and the people she'd devoted her life to. Suddenly, the world seemed much smaller than it actually was. “The Troupe is done,” she said blankly. “I'll take care of Chrollo for the rest of my life. We have nothing left.”

Kurapika Kurta shrugged. “It's your punishment, Machi. It'll be your cross to bear now that everyone else is gone. You know he'll never heal, right?”

She knew. She'd known since he woke up in the hospital days after they'd found him in the ditch. He'd asked for his husband. They'd all wondered- what husband?

“What will you tell him when he asks for me again?”

Machi sneered. “That you're dead- that his husband is dead!”

Chrollo stirred in her arms. “Kura... pika.” Tears slipped out of his half-lidded eyes and he sluggishly reached for Death.

“Fair enough,” Kurta said.

Machi watched as the blonde left them. The drugs had weakened Chrollo, but his senses weren't so dull that he didn't notice his torturer walk away from him.

“Don't leave,” Chrollo called. “Don't leave me.”

But he did- Kurapika Kurta left and Machi broke down in sobs again.

She sobbed for what felt like hours. The moon had risen by then, and shed an eerie light through the broken windows of Chrollo's room. She felt the crisp, cold air dilute the stink of sweat and piss. The food had gone cold. Chrollo didn't stop crying, but he was no longer reaching out. He was broken. Phinks and Feitan were dead. The others were long gone, and in the end end, there was no one but Machi. She was alone. After years of fighting for her family, she was alone... again.

She wiped her tears and settled Chrollo's docile body on his filthy bed. She got up and got on her knees in front of him to undo the chains holding his feet down. She unlocked the heavy cuffs and dropped them to the floor. Then she unwrapped the swathes of cloth that protected the rusted iron from digging into his skin. Still, she saw angry marks from all of the fussing and movement. She kissed the bruised ankles and stroked the purple skin. Chrollo didn't react.

The silver chains were almost a gift. They glinted in the moonlight, even with the speed that they were coming around her neck. If she'd been faster, she probably would have been able to fight them off, but, the Kurta was strong and Chrollo's eyes were dead. When the chains began to choke the life out of her, all she could do was gasp and claw at her neck.

“I hate him too much to allow him even the slightest comfort,” Kurta whispered into her ear as the chains dug into her skin. She tried to maneuver her head but couldn't. His chains tightened around her neck and threw her off balance. “Even the comfort of a friend,” he sang, his warm breath painting her cheek red. Machi wondered why Death sounded so peaceful while it stole her life from her body. “He'll die alone and screaming, just like the Kurta did... Just like you are.”

With that, he started to drag her away from Chrollo's unmoving body. He didn't seem to notice her broken screams. She reached out, shaky fingers begging for his hand, but all she felt was cold air. Her eyes watered and she wondered how far she'd fallen to die like this. She had no one- no mother, no friends, no Chrollo. Her final thoughts were about a mid-afternoon picnic somewhere in Kakin. The Troupe had pit-stopped there for a few nights before moving on to their next steal. They'd eaten and drank through the night. Machi remembered being happy. They'd just killed a family and stolen their heirlooms. They'd spilled blood, murdered children in their beds, and within hours, they were merrymaking in the next town.

She remembered Chrollo's patient smile and Nobunaga's laughter. Paku had drank herself to sleep, and Shal and Uvo had stolen kisses from each other when they thought no one was looking. There had been music, food, the gold they'd stolen, and the hearts of the dead they'd claimed earlier. What had they done? Why had they done it? How did they go to sleep that night knowing they'd brought death to people who didn't even know they existed?

She supposed Kurapika Kurta knew the answer. As the last bits of breath escaped her and the silver chains broke the skin of her neck, Machi felt darkness embrace her. It was cold- so, so cold. Why did it have to be so cold?

She died at the foot of the door, her neck broken and bleeding, her tongue lolling out of her open mouth in such clownish fashion that Kurapika almost chuckled at the irony. Her eyes were red and bleeding, the force of the strangulation so powerful that the twin orbs had burst partially before she passed. Kurapika Kurta unwrapped the silver chains and wiped the spittle and blood on his jacket sleeve before putting the chains back beneath his blazer.

He took one look at Chrollo's placid form and allowed himself a knowing smile. Kicking away the dead woman's body, Kurapika Kurta turned around and finally went home.

* * *

The city was finally going to sleep, and in a few hours, Hisoka Morow was due to report back to the auction house where he was first sold to her for the week. For almost three days, he'd lain comatose as doctors rushed to repair his injuries. He'd finally begun to stir earlier in the day, but he had yet to fully wake up and come to his senses.

She remembered pressing against the exit wound while he was still being bound and strapped to the gurney. She'd gone with him in the helicopter to the hospital she owned four fifths of, and she'd stayed by his side ever since. Had it not been for Wing and Cookie, she wouldn't have even eaten, much less showered and changed. Her son and friend knew her better than most and coaxed her into eating three meals and changing her clothes daily by reminding her that she had a grandson she owed her later years to, and a life beyond the danger she sought out for shits and giggles.

There would never be a treasure more beautiful than Hisoka Morow, but Bisky felt ashamed to tell them that. She felt ashamed to look Cookie in the eye and tell her that she'd fallen in love like an idiot and made a fool's mistake in not keeping her security up-to-date. She couldn't tell Wing that she'd failed once again, let her age and her idiocy get the best of her while two crooks crawled through her forest and almost killed her precious rose.

Hisoka was an unearthly beauty, so she'd wished she'd kept her hands to herself. He wasn't a blue rose that could be cloned in a laboratory and sold to the highest bidder on the black market. He was a person, and she really was nothing more than a beast.

She watched as his eyes opened.

“Welcome back, Clown,” she teased, the ice in her heart beginning to thaw at the sight of the tired man. Hisoka squinted, adjusting his eyes and ears to Bisky's true voice. When his gaze finally traveled to her form, his eyes seemed to glow. Inside, Bisky felt a burst of glee.

“Well, well,” he croaked, parched throat and dry lips a stark change from his usually balmed lips and carefully made up voice. “If it isn't the Beast. Let me get a good look at you.”

She chuckled and pulled her chair closer, but not so close as to block the light from his vision. She was still a good foot and a half taller than him, and she outweighed him by several hundred pounds of muscle. Yet, he looked at her with the eyes of a drunk in love instead of a man that just came out of multiple surgeries facilitated by an assassination attempt. In a way, Bisky was grateful.

“I'm going to drive you back to the auction house later tonight,” she told him after several minutes had passed. “Looks like your contract's over. I look forward to fighting you when you're back at full strength.”

He frowned, as if the thought of leaving was less than savory. “Unfortunate. We could have done so much more.”

She nodded. “We could have, but I miscalculated. I've made sure to compensate you fairly for your troubles. Don't worry about packing your things. Everything's already been delivered to the auction house. There's just you now.”

He hummed as if in deep thought. Bisky marveled at the brown skin that had slackened after days of saline drips. His blue hair was already red at the roots and growing longer, while a light, red stubble was peppered across his face. She could have shaved him, but she wasn't his lover. That was intimacy only a beloved could perform. She'd let the nurses handle the basic grooming practices and had merely stared from the glass window of his door.

“Maybe you can clear things up for me,” he said after some time. “About how our week together transformed from a sassing contest into an assassination attempt.”

She figured she'd have to spill sooner or later. “You were the catalyst in the end. Kurapika was hoping something would make Chrollo snap while he was back with the Troupe, but he never expected trying to purchase you at the auction would be the final trigger. Initially, he bid on you because he wanted information on the assassinations you carried out for the Troupe. He was going to find you after one of your dates to offer a deal, but since you entered the auction, he decided to make his life easier and simply buy it from you. But when he found out you were in love with the needle girl and Lucilfer, he changed tactics and came to me. He thought he could use you to get to him, but when you told him that Lucilfer loved someone else, he understood his folly. In the end, he completed his vengeance because of you. Lucilfer is in a state mental asylum right now. The needle girl was found strangled to death in his room. He was sewing himself a wedding dress when the cops found them. The girl was just lying there and he hadn't done a damn thing to cover up her body, much less bury it with dignity.”

Hisoka was quiet for several minutes. Bisky watched as his eyes glazed over and he left the room for a plane of existence she could only hope to reach one day. When he came back, he shrugged. It was an awfully fake shrug, though. Maybe he'd finally broken, but she wasn't sure. She could have kept her mouth shut and let him find out later, but Bisky was selfish and the Phantom Troupe had pissed her off too many times to earn any mercy from her. Yes, he'd loved the needle girl and the Troupe's leader, but they were the same people who sent assassins to have him killed. Bisky had no mercy for those that stood in her way, not even when they were dead. She of all people knew what happened when enemies stretched their influence from beyond the grave. Bisky's own father was an animal in her own right, and his awful words still rung in her head on days when she couldn't sleep.

But times had changed. She was a beast, now, and she did what beasts had always done- she'd taken, and taken, and taken some more until there was nothing left.

“I guessed,” he told her; the lilt in his voice was hollow but playful. “I've always been useful in situations like this- never the star, but always a good backup dancer. Tell the Kurta that I hope his vengeance was sweet.”

“It was. He's finally sleeping again. At least, that's what my surrogate grandsons told me.”

Hisoka chuckled. “You've got grandchildren?”

She smiled. “Several. There's my son's son, and then there are my son's students, who are also my students, and then there's my grandson's girlfriend, and their friends. It's nice; they're nice.”

“It sounds lovely,” he spoke softly, as if the wind itself could carry his voice away.

“I wish we could have had more time. I didn't know you could dance. I would have liked to share one with you.”

Hisoka hummed. “Perhaps in a different lifetime.”

She nodded. “Perhaps.”

She left his side, but didn't walk away from the door after she shut it. It took some time, but the tears finally began to flow and his sobs filtered through the door and into the hallway. She wondered just how much Chrollo Lucilfer and Machi Zamju did for him that they warranted strings of heartfelt sobs from a man who was far more broken than Bisky had ever imagined. If the needle girl wasn't dead and Chrollo in the asylum, she would have fought them both. She'd have fought for Hisoka, even if Hisoka couldn't fight them for himself. It was her agony to bear now, knowing that she'd never be good enough for his love while his tormentors had control of both his heart and his soul.

She left him to his tears, walking towards her future without a single look back.

* * *

Surprisingly, it was a short distance from the hospital to the auction house. With the traffic, it transformed into a two hour waiting game, but it was a waiting game Hisoka wanted to play. He felt odd and hollow. He'd only been gone for a week, but Yorknew already felt like a stranger. The rain-slicked streets were packed with human beings rushing to and from destinations. The streets were the same- crowded and offering no semblance of warmth to the passengers stuck in their cars. Hisoka counted the colors and picked off the sounds. He should have been at the center of his world, but he knew that, that center no longer existed in Yorknew. Something had changed in him long before Machi's death tore his heart out of his chest. Something had crumbled to dust before he learned Chrollo would never leave the chains of bedlam.

Yorknew was no longer home. If anything, it was a relic of a past he had to burn away like he did with the rape kit and reports. It was time to find a new home, new people to make his. That shouldn't be so hard. Hisoka was still empty enough to pretend like he didn't care.

The Beast dropped him off at the front entrance of the auction house. They didn't bid each other goodbye. He stepped out into the rain without the umbrella she left at his feet, and let the rain swallow him whole. He shut the car door and basked in the torrent. While he soaked in its mercilessness, the Beast and its chauffeur drove away from his life. He didn't turn back once.

After being thoroughly soaked, he walked into the auction house. The auctioneer from the previous week bowed and handed him a clipboard. He signed his name and checked off his belongings so that they could be delivered to his penthouse. He flexed his shoulders and smiled slyly as the spies in the shadows confirmed his identity. When the auctioneer deemed the information correct, they offered to call him a cab. Hisoka shook his head. He only had his phone and his poisoned deck. One quick call, and he could be riding Lionel's dick before the evening was over. A shuffle of his cards, and he could take out all of the spies hidden in the shadowy corners, even with the multitude of his injuries he'd suffered.

Hisoka felt alive in a way he hadn't in a very long time.

_That's because the last time you were like this, you were in prison._

The cunt was dead now. There was nothing to fear. This world was his. She'd put him on this earth to suffer, and that's all he did. It only made sense to spread that same suffering and discomfort she'd bestowed upon him. How else would he sing Machi's name? She was too beautiful erase.

The old Chrollo would have shook his head, but he would have smiled. That smile melted bits and pieces of Hisoka. Chrollo could have squeezed his heart in his chest, and he would have welcomed it. Someone so powerful and ethereal could break his spine and he still wouldn't hesitate to worship the very dirt they walked on.

He left the auction house a free man. A burst of adrenaline told him he could fight, but only if he accepted Death. He did. He'd met Death when Death wore nothing more than a plain suit and plain loafers, hands adorned with beautiful, silver chains. A few bullet wounds were nothing to Hisoka. He could take the pain. Death had always been his friend, even when loneliness was his eternal demon.

But all of that changed when he saw the boy hidden in a trench coat three times too big for his tiny frame. He stood across the street from the auction house, soaking in the torrential rain. Nothing but the ratty coat and a bowler hat protected him from the freezing downpour, and a fierce need to protect rose in Hisoka's chest. The pain of the bullet wounds and freezing cold finally registered in his head, and he realized that if he didn't get home soon, he'd die.

He would die and no one would be there for Kalluto, just like no one was there for him.

The cars passed by, and when he found an opening, he darted across the street and towards the boy. Before Kalluto could move, Hisoka embraced the tiny young man. He half-expected him to freeze, but instead, the boy wrapped his arms around Hisoka's waist. They stayed like that for a long time.

* * *

 

“You have a copy of my keys. You should have used them to lay low in one of my storage units,” he scolded once he'd shuffled the fifteen year old and himself into a cab. Kalluto didn't answer. His eyes gazed out into the rainy evening, hands politely placed over his lap. Hisoka scoffed. “At least talk to me. You know I don't like being ignored.”

The boy passed him a judgmental side-eye and Hisoka found that he couldn't stop his chuckles. The cab driver gave them a tired look while Hisoka burst out into full on laughter.

“Careful, Hisoka-san!” Now it was Kalluto's turn to scold him. “You just had surgery!”

Hisoka managed to stifle his giggles long enough to pull the boy into another hug. He huffed, a blush rising on his pale cheeks, and Hisoka giggled maniacally. Again, the cab driver glanced tiredly at the mirror reflecting his passengers, and Hisoka blew him a raspberry in return. They spent the ride chattering about nothing. Well, Hisoka babbled on about nothing, while Kalluto grunted and nodded in response. They reached Hisoka's penthouse in fifteen minutes. Once they got out, Hisoka typed in Lionel's credit information and sent the exhausted cabbie on his way.

They talked in the skyscraper's coffee bar. Still soaking wet, they earned impolite looks, but once the doorman realized it was Hisoka Morow, two towels and a table at the coffee bar opened up. Once they were settled, Hisoka ordered hot chocolate and looked intently at the young man who was now as lonely as the rest of the world's willful vagrants.

“I know what Illumi-nii did to you,” Kalluto admitted. “I'm ashamed, Hisoka-san. I never thought he'd stoop so low. We're killers. There's no honor in our business, but we kill to end. We don't let things drag out. He should have put you out of your misery, but instead...”

Hisoka waved it off like he did most things. There was only so much that could affect a man with no soul. “No one said Illumi was good at thinking things through.”

Kalluto prickled. “But he shouldn't have lied to you.” He clenched his fists and Hisoka could see where the skin was discolored from the years of torture he'd suffered to gain his murderous skills. “He lied to your face and then tried to cover it up so you wouldn't find out. I picked through the people who were there while you were being treated. They were all threatened, Hisoka-san. I had to threaten them myself to figure out why. No honor, no creed. He has nothing. Our family taught him nothing.”

“If you ask me, he would have made a better Troupe member than you,” Hisoka drawled. The cups of cocoa were placed in front of them, and Hisoka pushed one towards Kalluto before taking a sip from his own. “Illumi has always lived for the future. He probably thought being a Hunter would offer more opportunities for the Zoldyck clan, and worked accordingly. Like you said, he could have put me out of my misery and went about his day, but I'm glad he didn't. I like being alive, Kalluto-kun. Don't you?”

“I don't,” Kalluto confessed. “I haven't wanted to be alive for a long time now.”

Hisoka's blood ran cold. He flashed back to his time in the prison camp, a place he'd fought with bare fists to kill, kill, and kill some more. He had wanted to die then, and he wanted to die again mere hours ago. He wanted to kill until his stitches reopened. He wanted to go howling with laughter, blood on his lips. He wanted to paint the streets of Yorknew with his madness and watch it rain fire.

But then he looked at the young man in front of him and remembered that perhaps, just maybe there was some hope for him after all.

“We all want to die, Kalluto,” he whispered. “Doesn't mean we have to. There's always something new. A new name, a new song to sing, a new dance to learn. There's much more to it than just the blood that's been spilled.”

“I've been killing people since I was six.”

“Children kill their mothers coming out of their womb. Don't worry. We're all capable of cardinal sins the minute we come into this world.”

Kalluto smiled hollowly. He looked much older than his fifteen years. One of these days, Hisoka would have to pay the Zoldycks' mountain a visit and go on an honest killing spree. Kalluto could never stoop to his level and slit his mother's throat, but Hisoka didn't owe Kikyo Zoldyck any favors. He looked forward to fighting the matriarch and patriarch. He looked forward to avenging a friend much like Kurapika Kurta avenged-

What had he avenged?

“Machi, Feitan, Phinks, and Bonolenov are all dead.” Kalluto listed them off as if he'd read Hisoka's mind. “They dragged Chrollo to a mental asylum somewhere upstate. It's a state facility. He'll never recover up there, since they're understaffed and overcrowded. Franklin's crippled for good; I suppose he'll commit suicide one of these days. Anyone who joined the troupe after the genocide are free to go.”

'That genocide- did it have anything to do with Kurta?”

“It was the Kurta clan that was massacred. Chrollo and the Troupe killed them for their red eyes. Some say it was commissioned by a Kakin prince, but those are just rumors. No, this was all Chrollo Lucilfer. He wanted red eyes, so he got them the only way he could- he stole them right from their sockets.”

Hisoka remembered Death and his plain clothes. He remembered the contacts that covered those red eyes he'd never truly seen before. “What will you do next?”

Kalluto shrugged. “Roam, I guess. There's nothing for me here.”

Hisoka nods, knowing the boy was edging towards the end of his line. He dug into his pocket and slipped out a poisoned joker. He left the card on the table with the boy and walked away without saying goodbye.

He took an elevator up to his penthouse and keyed in the passcode before pressing his hand into the print pad. When he entered the room, he knew Illumi was out on the balcony waiting for him.

“You were never supposed to find out.”

Hisoka stretched his limbs and yawned. “How awfully petty of you.”

Illumi blinked, his face as blank and forgettable as the rest of him. “If it's worth anything, I am sorry.”

Hisoka looked at the man he made the mistake of calling his friend. “I am too.”

With that, he locked the balcony door and pulled the curtains shut. The Zoldyck that haunted his balcony would have to find a different way back down to earth. For Hisoka, this was the end of their chapter.

* * *

In the morning, a body was discovered in an underpass out in the slums of Yorknew. It had been run over by a truck earlier, but the driver swore it was already dead when it landed on his windshield. Apparently, the body fell from a great height and broke his window before it slid down the hood of the mammoth truck and ended up crushed beneath the wheel. A coroner's report spoke of poison, black hair, and a pale, small body. Far away, the Zoldyck family received news that their youngest had committed suicide.

Surprisingly, it wasn't Kikyo who suffered the mental breakdown, but Silva instead. Depression caught him in the worst way possible, and within days, his reign as the Zoldycks' master ended with abrupt closure. Illumi took over the helm, and nobody rejoiced. Back in Yorknew, Killua and Alluka Zoldyck buried their brother's body in a closed ceremony at a cemetery upstate. Biscuit Krueger attended the funeral, along with her son, her grandson, and her best friend. Two weeks. The coroner held the body for two weeks because of the discrepancies and disputes, and only released it to one Killua Zoldyck after he confirmed that it was, indeed, Kalluto Zoldyck, the fifteen year old Zoldyck boy. There was no open-casket wake. Kalluto had lost his face and his life. All that remained was a shredded sack of meat and bones that needed to be buried and forgotten. Gon Freecss and Zushi Krueger held their beloveds while they sobbed for their lost brother.

A forgotten penthouse lay bare for a new owner. By the time the rest of the world learned of Kalluto Zoldyck's death, Hisoka Morow was already on an airship to a land far, far away.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter left, folks! As usual, feedback appreciated! Hope y'all been havin a grand ol' time! :D


	9. Ajeeb Dastan Hai Ye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bisky was free. She still remembered brown skin and beautiful red hair, but those belonged to a man she hadn't seen in a year and supposed she'd never see again. Somewhere deep down, she ached, but that ache had been a constant companion over the months. Sometimes, losses were necessary. Bisky was a free bird, and to be this free had its sacrifices attached to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title of the chapter is a throwback to one of my favorite Hindi songs of all time- Ajeeb Dastan Hai Ye. It literally translated to into "what a strange story this is," and boy, is this story a strange one indeed.
> 
> Enjoy the last leg of the ride, y'all! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

**_One Year Later_ **

In the Republic of Hass, no one knew Biscuit Krueger. It was still a colony of Rokario that bogged down by civil strife that burst with the surge in industry and infrastructure in the cities while the agricultural communities starved out in the countryside. Bisky felt bad for them, but she'd seen enough broken nations to keep her mouth shut. Eventually, the blood wars would go from internal to external. Once the civil strife ended, the anger would be turned towards the colonizers. Bisky had no doubt that the entirety of the Mitene Union would see a nation-wide war until all of Rokario's colonies were freed and declared sovereign states. Bisky had fought her fair share of independence wars as a mercenary. Eventually, either a youth group or a band of natives would organize and run fundraisers to raise enough cash for a telephone. Then they'd use that telephone to reach the Hunter Association's request hotline, and once they'd put their in their request and price, they'd wait for a callback that either denied or approved their request.

Hunters were only welcome in Hass if they were invited and hired by viceroys employed by the Rokarian empire. Usually, they hunted rogues, spies, and dissidents. Natives were prohibited from even contacting the Hunter Association, much less hiring a Hunter. Crimes against the crown were punishable by death, and yet, Bisky had no doubt that soon someone would put in the call to have a Hunter help them plan and execute a coup that would guarantee their freedom.

Being the person that she was, Bisky would take the call. She'd agree to the price, and be back in Hass in her military-grade camo, carrying machetes and face paint, her thick blonde hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. It would be her seventh independence war, and she'd hack, shoot, and pummel her way to victory because she wasn't the type to take a loss sitting down. True treasure slept in theheart of humanity. It was a feeling that was forever fleeting between space and time, and it was a feeling Bisky would always strive to embody.

But today wasn't the day to fight a war. She and Cookie had traveled through the main capital and port cities, picking up odd trinkets and truckloads of colorful fabrics. Gyro's mission took seven months to complete, and afterwards, they'd gone back to Yorknew. They'd planned to bother Wing for a few weeks and then jet off to Kakin for a vacation, but Gon and Killua announced their engagement and wedding date, so now Bisky and Cookie were traveling around the world picking up wedding gifts. Hass had a gemstone Gon fell in love with while hunting on Greed Island, but the island's copy was a fake, so Bisky and Cookie made the trip to the colony to pick up an original piece. She'd have them cut into a set of pendants, and then she'd have two white gold chains forged to go along with the pendants. She was a romantic at heart, so the stones would be cut into the shape of a heart. Love was a wonderful thing, and after Kalluto Zoldyck's death, Bisky knew Killua and his sister would need all the love and support they could get.

In Hass, no one knew Biscuit Krueger, so she didn't have to dress like a driver while Cookie feigned being her boss. In Hass, Biscuit Krueger was simply a white lady whose loose, blonde hair was held up by a bright, red ribbon. She wore a pretty blue frock spotted with black dots. Her arms were free and her legs tightless. The Hassian climate was warm and moist, so she wore flip-flops instead of pumps. To the natives, she looked nothing like them, from the color of her skin to her hairstyle. They didn't care that she was over seven feet tall, or that she was stronger than most men.

In Hass, she was an outsider, but she was an outsider they expected. The natives kept to themselves while the street sellers hawking their wares called for her to buy their things. And Bisky did. She bought for Gon and Killua, and she bought for herself. She bought things for Alluka, for Wing, for Zushi, and even for Kurapika Kurta, a man who'd finally healed and gotten engaged to the music hunter, Melody. There were colors here Bisky knew could never be reproduced appropriately outside, so Bisky marveled, Bisky bought, and Bisky lived.

Bisky was free. She still remembered brown skin and beautiful red hair, but those belonged to a man she hadn't seen in a year and supposed she'd never see again. Somewhere deep down, she ached, but that ache had been a constant companion over the months. Sometimes, losses were necessary. Bisky was a free bird, and to be _this_ free had its sacrifices attached to it.

After they'd packed their items and had them trucked off to their hotel, Bisky and Cookie headed to a carnival. It was a Hassian carnival, unlike the carnivals in Yorknew and the rest of Saherta. Here, revelers were natives instead of the viceroy families and visitors from outside the colony. Here, Bisky and Cookie were exposed, but the natives ignored them for their own fun. The food was oily and spicy, the kind of sinful goodness Bisky indulged in when Cookie wasn't looking, but today seemed to be a cheat day. Both women bought several plates of fried bread and fusca, eating and laughing as the jugglers and acrobats performed outside in the warm night. There were no tents. The performances were for everyone, from vendors to buyers. Everyone was welcome. Bisky was welcome.

After their food, the women roamed around until they came upon a man offering rides on an elephant. Cookie gave Bisky one salute before darting off for an adventure. Bisky waved goodbye as her friend giggled and screeched as the elephant began circling around the circus. Bisky laughed. She found an empty bench, kicked off her flip-flops, and took in the night air. There was a colorfulness here that she'd never experienced in Yorknew. She knew if she went out into the countryside, it would be the same. The cars would be replaced with rickshaws, and the colors would bounce off lanterns instead of light bulbs. Colors here, there, in every corner. Bisky sighed contently. There was love here, a love that she couldn't touch, but it was a love she could feel nonetheless.

“Fancy meeting you here, Beast. I'll admit, I didn't think your clown fetish reached beyond the bedroom.”

Bisky froze. A clown sat down next to her. He looked different than the first time she saw him. He still had a star and a tear drop painted on his face, but he wasn't wearing stark white makeup underneath the shapes. Bisky's eyes widened. She'd never made the connection before because of how slack his brown skin had been in the hospital, and at the castle, a thin layer of makeup always erased the fact that he wasn't naturally light-skinned. Bisky connected the dots.

“You're Hassian,” she stated dumbly.

Hisoka looked at his manicured nails. His hair was in its natural red color, but he had it made up with gel and blue glitter. He wore a blue tunic, cropped at the waist so it exposed the healthy brown skin of his chiseled abdomen. He wore red bloomers printed with yellow and pink stars. Thick, gold bracelets encircled his wrists, biceps, and ankles. He had on diamond earrings the shape of clovers. Upon closer inspection, she saw that he'd smudged kohl under his eyes and on the ridges of his eyelids. She was starstruck, and it had only been a year.

“So insightful of you, Beast,” he drawled. He looked at her and gave her a coy smile.

“What?”

“You're a hard one to peg.”

She huffed. “Just because you got the drop on me-”

“Come on, Daddy.”

She blanched. “What?”

He stuck out his tongue and winked. “Daddy owes me a fight, doesn't she?”

Bisky sighed, telling her libido to shut the fuck up because this was _not_ the time. “Oh.”

Hisoka frowned. “Tell me you didn't forgotten.”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course not. It's been a while, so I thought you'd lost interest.”

He shook his head. “It takes a long time for a person of your caliber to come along, Beast. Don't think I'd just let the opportunity pass.”

“Sure did take your sweet ass time.”

He grinned. “With an ass this fine, wouldn't you?”

Bisky had to will herself not to snort and tell him his ass was flatter than most asses she'd seen over the years. “Fine, but we'll have to make it quick. Cookie will be off her elephant in about ten minutes, and I'd like to get back to my hotel with my clothes still in one piece.”

Hisoka bit his lip. “Easy, Beast. I might tear it off if I get a little _too_ excited.”

Bisky snorted. “As if I'd let you.”

Hisoka gave her a toothy grin before getting up and gesturing her to follow him. She did. As they walked away from the circus and into an alley between two six-story buildings, Bisky finally saw what the rest of the world saw after they realized what Hisoka Morow really was. When he wasn't a prostitute selling his services to Yorknew's underground elite, he was an enigma. He was a man who could put up a fight against her. He wouldn't win, but he'd make her sweat long enough to make her want to claim him. He was, as she'd always expected, a harpy who could kill her in her sleep if she wasn't careful.

And damn if Bisky didn't welcome the challenge.

When they were deep within the alley, two minutes had already passed. The alley was devoid of people, and windows of the buildings were shut and devoid of light. They stood ten feet from each other, a distance Bisky could cover in less than three seconds.

“I'm here.”

Hisoka hummed. “You are.”

“A bit cramped for a fight, don't you think?”

He shrugged. “It'll suffice.”

Bisky sighed. “Well then, give it your best shot. Remember,” she flexed her muscles and balled her hands into fists, “I won't go easy on you.”

Hisoka grinned. “I know.”

Bisky eased her shoulders and grounded her heels. “First hit's all yours, Clown.”

Hisoka nodded. “All mine.”

Bisky watched as he walked closer and closer until he was right in front of her. It was laughable how tiny he was compared to her. He only reached up to her chest. If she wanted, she could headbutt him once and put him in a coma for the next three weeks. She chuckled inwardly at the thought of knocking him, literally, into another week.

When he kissed her full on the lips, she blinked three times before she came to her senses.

“Huh.”

He frowned, licking his lips. “You said you wouldn't hold back. This can't be your best shot. Please tell me you know how to make out.”

Bisky gawked. “You kissed me! You were supposed to swing, not lay one on me!”

Hisoka sniffed. “I was promised greatness, and this is what I get? Tragic.”

“Y-you!” She sputtered while Hisoka huffed and turned away from her seething form. “No, you don't!”

She hoisted him up against the alley wall and kissed him deeply. She pressed against his body, locking him against the alley wall with her upper-body. She insisted until he opened his mouth and let her tongue slide in. Thick hands roamed the expanse of his taut form, caressing warm skin and loose cotton. He clutched her shoulders, moaning into her kiss while his legs wrapped themselves around her waist. She let go of his lips and watched as he sucked in deep breaths. His chest heaved against her bosom. Her breath hitched, realizing how quickly she'd become wet. Hisoka grinned, still pinned between her body and the alley wall.

Bisky could play the hulking giant when she wanted to, even with a cute dress and no shoes. She grabbed a hold of his face before he could push her away. Bisky gazed into pretty eyes faintly crinkled with age, though Hisoka was hardly twenty-seven. She counted the faint cracks in his skin, remnants of a history that took place before he started prostituting himself to the world's underground elite. She knew Kurapika Kurta had an entire dossier on him, but after their contract ended, she refused to read through the documents. She had to leave him behind. He was a moment in her life when her age and loneliness coupled together to make her life a living hell. His coquettish gaze fueled her ego as a conqueror, but it was his grace that reminded her that in the end, all she wanted was someone to sleep next to and hold when the days were rough.

She didn't notice his hands until they were already caressing her fingers. He squeezed her wrists and nuzzled the rough skin of her hands. He closed his eyes and stayed put against the warmth she provided, though the day was hot and the night air humid.

“Cookie's waiting,” she said. She'd promised to leave him behind. He was supposed to be in Yorknew, somewhere far, far away from Hass and its native clowns.

“Hmm,” he hummed, still nuzzling her big hands. She let go of his face, but before she could move her hands away, he entwined their fingers. She marveled at how small they were compared to her own. They were as brown and soft as the rest of him, a lovely contrast against her pale, rough physique.

“I-”

“-have to introduce me to this Cookie,” he interrupted her. “I'm sure you're aware of date night etiquette, Beast.”

“This is a date?” She asked flatly.

He smiled kittenishly and shrugged. She moved away from his body, allowing him slide down the alley wall until his feet were on the ground. Their hands were still entwined, and Bisky had to control every fiber in her body not to hug and swing around the clown who managed to catch her unaware.

“Shall we?” He let go of one hand but kept the other curled around her calloused fingers. He beckoned her to follow again.

This time, hand in hand, they wove through the alley until they were back in the circus. Natives looked their way and stared in amazement as one of their own held hands with a behemoth. Bisky watched as Hisoka ignored the stares and looked for Cookie. Something broke inside of her, and she had the urge to pull him against her chest and just hold him. She wanted to hold him now and for the rest of her life.

She jolted out of her reverie as the sound of shrieking laughter filtered through the air. From her height, she could see Cookie inching their way, cotton candy in hand. When she came upon them holding hands, she yelped and almost dropped her confections.

Hisoka chuckled. “Aren't you going to introduce us?”

Bisky gulped. “Cookie, this is-”

“Mr. Morow,” Cookie deadpanned. “What a surprise. Should I be worried, Bisky-chama?”

Bisky started sweating. “See, about th-”

“Absolutely not,” Hisoka cut in, huffing at Cookie. “I'm not a dog. I'm here to take the Beast out on a _proper_ date.”

“Bisky-chama isn't a beast, idiot,” Cookie snapped. She handed off her cotton candy to a confused child and closed the distance between herself and the clown.

Bisky groaned. Cookie had balled her fists, ready to swing at Hisoka's smug face. She wished she could bonk him on the head and make him shut up, but she still felt bad about him getting pistol-whipped. She didn't even want to think about the bullet wound.

Cookie was two seconds away from knocking out Hisoka's two front teeth when Bisky let go of Hisoka's hand and jumped between her best friend and her... Whatever Hisoka was!

“Cookie, that's my pet name,” she pleaded.

Cookie looked scandalized. “Your _what?”_

“My pet name.” Bisky knew she was panicking, but she willed herself to chill. “At first it was rude, but now it's just kinky.”

Cookie gave her the most judgmental stare she had under her arsenal while Bisky guiltily looked away from her intense gaze. Hisoka snickered behind her. She flashed him a glare, but that just seemed to increase his mirth.

“Bisky-chama... seriously?”

“Seriously, Cookie.”

“I'm going back to the hotel,” she said flatly. “I'm going to book you and lover boy a plebeian room. I'm sleeping in the master suite. _Alone_.”

With that, Cookie stalked away. Bisky inwardly sobbed. The master suite had a big bathtub she planned on lolling around in after the circus. She'd even bought her waterproof vibrator and a couple of skin mags from a Hassian port vendor. Tonight was supposed to be a lazy one! The wedding gems were bought, she already had dinner, and her skin was warm. She was supposed to relax and enjoy the perks of being single and filthy rich!

Hisoka wrapped his arms her wide waist and nuzzled her back. Her breath hitched for the second time that night. She looked down to her feet and saw that they were dirty. Her flip-flops had disappeared from where she'd kicked them off, and now her best friend had claimed supreme control over the best room in their hotoel. All she had left was a clown and an a plebeian closet when they returned to the hotel.

A clown- she had a clown.

“What's your game, Clown?” She huffed, tapping his taut arms.

“No game,” he confessed. “I just wanted to spend some time with you, seeing as how our original plans were cut short because of thief nonsense.”

She snorted. “They came to kill you. They almost _did._ ”

She could just feel him roll his eyes. “You're so melodramatic, Beast,” he teased.

She gawked and had half a head to bonk him on his thick skull with a closed fist. “I had to carry your half-dead body back to the castle before the helicopter got there!”

“I'm touched,” he sniffed. “My hero~”

With that, she turned around to look at the rude little shit that managed to steal her heart. He looked at her with the smuggest grin Bisky had ever seen someone wear. She snorted and grabbed a hold of his waist. “So where are we off to?”

“I thought you'd never ask.” He licked his lips. “Ever pair dance in a Hassian festival?”

Bisky blinked. “No?”

He stood on the tips of his toes and kissed her cheek. “You will tonight.” And with that, they ran off.

The festival was an hour away by car, but Hisoka taught her how to jump on one of Hass's many coal trains. The locomotives were fast, chugging quickly through the outskirts of where Bisky and Cookie had stopped for the week. The train only took twenty minutes to get to their destination. When they were near the festival, Hisoka jumped off the train and rolled into a thick bed of banana leaves. She followed suit. With her power, she was able to land on her feet, unharmed and still barefoot. She could see the glint in his eyes, his desire as palpable as his beauty.

Hand in hand, they rushed through the jungle terrain until they reached a clearing that led towards the festival. Even from their distance, Bisky could hear the music and smell the plethora of foods. A short cart ride later, they were in the middle of dancers flitting to and fro with their partners, wrapped in colorful silks and cottons. Bisky felt out of place in her Yorknew dress, but she forgot all about her insecurities when she witnessed Hisoka melt into the thrum of the music. She remembered the night he gave his performance. He didn't tap to a flamenco tune now, or sway his hips to tango music. Instead, he thrust his hips from side to side and undulated his arms to the beat of Hassian drums and sitars.

Flamenco or not, he still oozed grace and style. A clown with a star and a tear drop painted on his face, someone Yorknew's elite would laugh at, but here, he was free. This was the Hisoka she wanted, the one she thought she'd never be able to reach. She was mesmerized by his gestures. When he caught her staring, he closed in and she stilled.

He took her into his arms and they started swinging. She tried to follow his steps as best as she could, remembering that she was still a head taller than him. The crowd here didn't seem to notice, and that was just fine with Bisky. Her eyes were only for him, and the more she stared, the more she realized that his eyes... His eyes were only for her.

Only for her.

She broke into a smile and let him steal her away.

* * *

 

Hisoka moaned while Bisky caressed. He wasn't pressed against a grimy brick wall, but instead, the tiny bed the plebeian room offered. She softly nibbled at his ear while lifting his tunic over his head. She palmed his heated flesh, eliciting a loud groan from the bottom of his chest. She giggled as she gently undid his pants and tossed them to the side, along with her dress and bra.

He didn't waste any time. He went straight to gently rubbing her mound until the moistness made her pant. He ghosted kisses against her muscled neck, breathing heavily against her flesh while gasps and whispered promises filtered through the damp air. He was a stranger to her, a stranger named Hisoka who met her in a world she wasn't a accustomed to, a world that belonged only to him. Bisky inwardly snorted. He was obnoxiously soft for someone so prone to violence.

She stroked his cock, caressing the soft and dark skin of his manhood. He continued to kiss her, but she yelped when two fingers slipped in between the folds of her slit. He urged for her to lay down and she did. He turned and got on top of her. His lips latched onto her breast, sucking earnestly as his long, pretty fingers scissored her with urgency.

She keened, feeling the orgasm rise in the pit of her loins. Her pants became louder with each second, his fingers following the rhythm of her breaths until he was four fingers deep and peppering purple hickeys across her chest. She came on his fingers, a long and throaty moan reverberating throughout the room. He ground his throbbing cock against her thigh, relishing in the friction. After Bisky came down from her high, he slipped out his fingers and began to suck on them. She grinned, and flipped him over, once again on top.

Her mouth went straight to his cock, and being the champion that she was, she deep-throated him so good that he screamed when he came on her tongue. She swallowed his cum, unperturbed by the taste. She hadn't sucked such a pretty cock on such a pretty man in a long time. He was hers for the night, every last drop of him.

“Make love to me,” he whispered, his hair frazzled and messy against the red pillow cover. The blue glitter was peppered against the fabric, but that hardly made a dent in the picture when there was his blood red hair to consider.

Bisky blinked, remembering that they were in the middle of a long, hot fuck. They weren't on some romantic getaway after a shotgun wedding. Tomorrow morning, Hisoka would disappear, and Bisky would be all alone again. Her vibrator and skin mags were still waiting for her in her luggage, but they seemed worthless when she had the real thing right underneath her. Plus, her feet were still filthy, even if she'd dipped them in a pond before they entered the hotel.

“Bisky?”

She blinked again. “What did you call me?”

He rolled his eyes. “Biscuit Krueger, famed warlord of Yorknew. Or is it the Beast with the castle in the middle of no where? Darling wife? I'm getting impatient. Fuck me hard like you mean it.”

She scoffed, sitting on his thighs while she waited for his refractory period to pass. “You're a bitch, you know that? I have half a mind to leave you here with nary a pussy to dive into.”

He laughed gleefully, head thrown back and eyes crinkling with mirth. Bisky felt her wet mound tingle with the sound of his laughter. When he stopped, he opened wet eyes to gaze upon her naked form. “Take off your panties,” he commanded.

She obliged, hoisting herself off his thighs so she could slip off the pink lace. She knew her pussy glistened. She hadn't shaved in two weeks, so damp, white curls covered her mound and inner thighs, complimenting the smooth skin of her thighs and stomach. She saw as his cock come back to life without her even touching him.

“Weak,” she teased, climbing back on top of him. “So weak for Daddy.” Hisoka moaned, slipping his eyes shut as Bisky's hand closed around his cock. “Cum for Daddy, Hisoka.”

“Beast~” He whined, nudging for her cunt to slide over his weeping cock.

“What's the magic word, Precious?”

“Please, Daddy,” he moaned, eyes begging for her to end his agony. “Fuck me, _please._ ”

She nodded, satisfied with his urgency. She used his precum to slick her slit and then eased down on the cock. She groaned, welcoming the feeling of another inside of her. When he began to massage her thighs, she began to ease herself upon and down on his cock.

“What do you love about me, Hisoka?” She panted, enjoying the feeling of his cock slide in and out of her cunt. “Is it my hair? My boobs?” Her breath hitched and she gradually increased her pace. “What did you want first when you saw me?”

“Your thighs,” he gasped, shivering. “I wanted,” he groaned, urging for her to ride him faster, harder. “I wanted to crawl between your thighs and bury my face in your cunt.” His breaths came faster. _“Bisky.”_

Her eyes glazed over and she threw her head back, earnestly riding the man she dreamed so fiercely about over the last year. She brought down her hips over and over again, her clit tingling with pleasure with every thrust. When she felt her climax rise, she tightened around him, eliciting a throaty moan that reverberated off the brown walls of the tiny room. She came on his cock and he followed suit. She almost slumped against him, but caught herself before she crushed him underneath her weight. When she looked down at the sweaty man underneath her, she saw a blissful face. Her eyes burned and she blinked away the tears before they ruined her night. She eased herself off of his cock and her panties to wipe the cum leaking from in between her legs. She snorted. There was no chance of her ever getting pregnant, so a raw fuck was a normal fuck for her. She tossed the soiled garment onto the floor and lay down next to the clown.

He turned to her and dragged a red piece of cloth against her pink flesh. The silk cloth caressed her large breasts and the taut abs of her stomach. They ghosted against her slick pussy until he brought it against her throat. It was her hair ribbon, soiled with grease and sweat.

“I wanted to do something that made me happy. I've always wanted someone who could fight back and keep me in line, but it didn't seem like I'd ever get either. I left for a better life. I came back because I couldn't make it.”

Bisky's stilled her heart, reminding her that they were people, not monsters. “I hurt you.”

He scoffed, curling against her. He draped an arm over her stomach and placed his head against her breast. “You didn't have to save my life, but you did. That was kind of you. If you want, I could be yours forever.”

The temptation to say yes was far stronger than she'd ever imagined, but she couldn't. It wasn't love that drove Hisoka; it was debt. He owed her his life, but she didn't want his life. She wanted his smile, but she doubted it was something he'd ever give up willingly. “I roam because no one in the outside world can stand me. I'm fifty-eight years old, Hisoka. I'm petty and loud. I fight wars and carry out raids. I hunt for treasure, and I sell luxuries on the black market. I have nothing to offer you but more misery.”

He stayed quiet for several minutes. She spent those minutes memorizing the texture of his body so she could dream about it when he left her for good. He was softer than she'd every imagined, and she wanted to remember this gentle and kind human after he'd forsaken her.

Even if it was a debt for Hisoka, to Bisky, all she could think of was love. This is what unbridled affection felt like.

“I'm going be a clown for the rest of my life,” he drawled, drawing circles on her stomach with his finger. “It's what makes him happy. Plus, I have a kid now.” Bisky's eyes widened, but he didn't seem to notice. “I can't come home at odd hours of the night, every night. I'm still sugaring, but I opt for shopping trips these days. There's the occasional casual sex, but I don't stay the night. I have to be up in the morning to make sure his homework is done. Then I've got to pack his lunch, do some laundry.” He yawned. “I can't sugar forever, Beast. I need a permanent daddy now, so I have to aim for trophy husband status.”

Bisky was weak in the chest, so she laughed out loud. Hisoka pouted, harumphing against her breast before sliding up to her neck and kissing her pale throat. He played with a strand of her blonde hair, twisting the curl around his fingers. He felt like a feather to her, weighing nothing against her frame but worth every jenny in the world. “Did you find the happiness you were looking for?”

He nodded against her chest. “Yes.”

“Then why do you need me when you have everything you've ever wanted? I know for a fact that you have more than enough funds to live comfortably over the next ten lifetimes, so what's the catch?”

A heavy sigh and several pokes to her boob later, he blew a raspberry. “You're no fun.” She turned to look at his pretty face, marveling at his eyelashes. Every moment she spent with him, she found that there was something more to be grateful for. “You want the truth? It's pretty boring, but you asked for it.” He took a deep breath and placed his chin on her breast. “I'm still looking for an arm strong enough to bring the world to its knees... but gentle enough to play with my hair."

Bisky chuckled at the response, but Hisoka just frowned. “I'm serious,” he insisted. “A boy doesn't get this lucky that often, especially not in our world,” he huffed. “... Maybe it's because you're so strong. I can't help myself. You, though, you could have said no and tossed me away. So, why did you agree to take me to bed?”

“Because I'm a sucker for love,” she admitted, since secrets seemed to be obsolete at this point.

“You love me?”

She nodded. “I do.”

“Well, that's absurd. I like you.”

She blinked. “You do?”

He nodded, embracing her naked chest against his bare form. “I do.”

“Ah,” she said, slightly dazed. “Would you look at that.”

Hisoka thought for some time before speaking. “I have to get back to my hotel now. If I'm not home within the next hour, my son will come looking for me.”

Bisky chuckled. “I never knew you had a kid. Maybe I should have taken Kurapika's offer and read through your file.”

Hisoka snickered as he got up and stretched. “How is the death god?”

“Engaged to be married,” she laughed, getting up as well. “He expressed his desire to see you again, but I told him we were done.”

He shrugged, pulling on his tunic and underwear before shuffling into his pants. “I'd like to see him again,” he admitted. “He did help me, after all.”

Bisky pulled on her dress and wrapped the ribbon around her hair. She didn't bother with the panties, and tossed the soiled cloth into the trash bin. “How did you find me Hisoka,” she asked, smoothing down her frock. “Cookie and I don't use our real names when we travel, and most airlines have strict orders to cut us from their filmed footage. So, how did you find us?”

“I caught sight of your name while traveling in Kakin,” he drawled, putting on his thick bracelets. “My son and I found records of someone attempting to hire you. Biscuit Krueger might not show her face, but everyone knows her name. We're pretty good trackers, so we mapped out a pattern and found that you were visiting Hass next.”

Bisky couldn't even begin to fathom how old his kid was. Thirteen, fourteen maybe? Hisoka was hardly twenty-seven, but he probably had the baby when he was in his early teens. The notion was an odd one, to say the least, but she found that it suited him. He was a father. He did as parents did before him and provided for his kid while putting his body on the line. She couldn't help but smile. She was dating a single dad. She was sure the mother wasn't in the picture.

Dating- Bisky was dating Hisoka. The thought was as absurd as it was hilarious.

“My son's students are getting married in a month,” she said. “Wanna be my date to the wedding?”

His eyes gleamed as he got on his tippy toes and kissed her cheek. “I'd love that.”

She beamed. “So what's next.”

He bit his lip and frowned. “I have to finish some work here, so I won't be able to see you until the wedding. How about you give me your number and we'll chat in between work?”

She nodded, satisfied with the arrangement. She wrote down her number on a piece of paper and tucked it into his pocket. “Can I walk you to your car?”

“I'll be taking a rickshaw, but sure.”

They left the plebeian room and headed down the stairs to the lobby. Outside, the air was still warm and humid, but Bisky found that it wasn't so late. They'd only been frolicking about for four hours. It was hardly eleven, and revelers were still out and about. Hisoka hailed a rickshaw and they waited patiently until the native stopped in front of them.

“Until next time,” he said.

“Next time,” she agreed. She placed a kiss on his forehead and then helped him into the rickshaw. She watched as the driver wheeled him away, waving goodbye as they went. She stood and watched until they disappeared from view.

When she went back inside the hotel, Cookie waited for her with two glasses of wine. They clinked glasses and sat down on the lobby couch. They didn't speak. With Cookie, Bisky didn't have to talk to be honest. As the revelers streamed in and out of the hotel, they sat and silence and enjoyed their drinks.

Tomorrow, they'd start anew.

* * *

 

Two days before Gon and Killua's wedding, Wing's phone pinged to tell him that someone had updated their social media. Wing finished washing the dishes and wiped his hands on a fluffy white towel before opening the photo-sharing app on his phone. His eyes widened. The message was from his mother, which was quite a surprise since the matriarch of the Krueger family hardly took photos. He slid open the app and took one look at shared picture before passing out cold.

Zushi found him three hours later. He called an ambulance, and within half an hour, both Zoldycks, the Freecss tribe, and Zushi were pacing outside Wing's room while a doctor checked him over.

“It's nothing too pressing,” advised the kind old man. “He simply became overwhelmed.”

Zushi was brought to tears. “But what could have done such a thing to Father?”

It was after they were back at home and Wing was tucked underneath the covers of his bed that he admitted to Gon, Killua, and Zushi that he'd seen the devil earlier in the day.

“Sensei,” Gon crowed, horrified at the thought that a demon had caught his teacher unaware. “Who was it?” Wing sniffed and passed the phone to his students and son. They looked at the photo on the screen and balked.

Biscuit Krueger was pictured lounging in front of an open sea, sunglasses on her face, and a printed blue dress hugging her form in all the right places. It was a knee-length affair, form-fitting and with a single, black shoulder strap. She wore red heels and red lipstick, her hair in an updo. Yet, that was hardly the problem.

There was a fucking clown on her lap, kissing her cheek. She had an arm protectively wrapped around around his waist. Had it not been for Killua, Gon and Zushi would have ended up in the hospital with strokes that day too.

* * *

 

On the day of her students' wedding, Bisky strolled into the church with a clown on her arm and diamonds sparkling on her hands. Cookie rolled her eyes and stepped away from the disgustingly happy couple. Alluka and the grooms laughed sheepishly as they welcomed them into the building.

“We have a few extra guests,” Bisky confessed, grinning from ear to ear. “Gon, hold your future husband and your future sister-in-law tight.”

Gon did as he told, even though he was a head and a half shorter than both Killua and Alluka. His stocky arms could only manage to grasp their biceps. Still, the stocky little man was determined to follow instructions, so Killua patted Gon's spiky hair and indulged him.

A minute later, Kalluto Zoldyck walked in with a girl on his arm. He wore a yellow, Yorknew-style dress, no longer wrapped in a long and flowing kimono. The girl on his arm was also in a dress, but hers was much more elaborate and cut on the side, exposing several tattoos.

“Nii-san, nee-san,” he deadpanned. “Congratulations.”

Killua and Alluka passed out on the spot, and if it hadn't been for Zushi magically showing up, the weight of two Zoldycks would have crushed Gon.

“I guess now's not the right time to tell them that you've changed your name to 'Kal,'” tutted Hisoka.

“Or that you adopted me,” deadpanned Kal Morow.

“At least Illumi wasn't invited,” Hisoka drawled, nuzzling Bisky's arm before looking up at her with shining eyes. “Darling, if you find him creeping around, could you please break his neck?”

She nodded, puffing out her chest and flicking her blonde hair. “Of course, honey.”

“Thank you.” His got on the tips of his toes and kissed her cheek. She preened while he threw her heart eyes.

Kal's girlfriend sighed. “Your family is so strange.”

Kal simply shrugged. “Better than my last one.”

* * *

 

As absurd as it all is, the wedding went without a hitch. There was a lot of crying and Killua and Alluka spent lots of time trying to convince Kal to stay, but he assured them that he was happy now. Hisoka and Bisky watched from the sidelines, drinking and chuckling while Cookie flitted from guest to guest. Somewhere along the way, Kurapika Kurta asked him for a dance, and he agreed.

“I heard you're engaged to the lovely Melody.”

Kurapika nodded, hand appropriately above his waist and leading him gracefully around the dance floor. “Melody and I are traveling around the world for a little while before the wedding. You're welcome to come. I was afraid we'd never meet again.”

Hisoka let himself get twirled and led. “I'll admit, I was mad at first, but you're a smart one, Kurta. I wouldn't have had the patience to calculate such a fitting end for my enemies.”

Kurapika laughed, but it wasn't an empty laugh. He seemed genuinely content. “I did what I had to do, but I wouldn't have gotten it all squared out if it wasn't for you. Thank you.”

“And thank you,” Hisoka nodded. “Odd, isn't it? We both seem to have gotten our happy endings.”

“As it should be.”

They finished their dance, bowed to one another, and went back to their beloveds. It wasn't an ending either of them expected, but it was better than anything than they could have ever asked for.

* * *

 

Hisoka made a noise at the back of his throat, one akin to that of a chicken. Bisky, his beautiful Beast, laughed so easily and heartily that Hisoka couldn't help but drink some of the mirth twinkling on her lips. When they kissed, Hisoka closed his eyes and imagined all the colors of the world sparking a halo of light around them. He felt Bisky grin against his lips.

He told her that his name was Hisoka Morow, and that he wanted to see her pretty face every day for the rest of his life. His trousers were hardly undone, but Bisky snorted and nodded anyway. The heaviness in his heart lifted with ease.

He let his reverie take him to somewhere only he and his lover existed. His pants slid down his thighs and crumpled to the ground while his shirt and jacket were loosened before they were unbuttoned. Bisky still had her dress on. He felt exposed as she effortlessly wrapped his legs around her waist, but she sensed his discomfort. She pressed a kiss to the base of his throat, as close as she could get without crushing him beneath her weight. He sighed, melting into her touch and sinking further into the hotel room's fluffy, white bed.

But fear struck deep in his heart, and he knew that this was different from other nights, and that Bisky was different from other people. Tonight was the night he died, the night a beautiful blonde in a sharp dress and sharper heels took his life while his pants were gone and his shirt was unbuttoned.

A warm hand palmed his freed erection before sneaking lower and lower, until fingers nudged the cleft between his cheeks. A sharp sting, and suddenly warm fingers become shards of sandpaper pushing against clenched skin and frayed nerves. Bisky persisted, and two become three, and Hisoka's erection betrayed him. He beckoned his head for another kiss, and she pressed her lips deeply against his while she fingered him.

Bisky tasted like stale cigars and cheap whiskey. It was just like his cuisine, not from the world of the elite, but from some place where colors existed, colors that didn't just translate into greens and blues. Fingers continued to work against tight nerves, and there was pain, lots of it, but a different hue of colors burst behind his eyelids when Bisky reached his prostate. He'd fucked men and women, and gotten fucked by enough married people that he knew he didn't have any competition left to face.

But no one had ever wanted him any more than what he could give them at face value. A handsome face, strong arms, stronger thighs, and teeth that could scrape the very soul of whatever conquest Hisoka had in sight.

He tightened his hold around Bisky's waist for dear life, welcoming her ministrations. Bisky endured life just like Hisoka endured life- seeking out danger one minute at a time. She held him even while she adjusted the strap-on she was going to use to penetrate him. When he felt her slip in, there was a moment of silence even the world agreed to beckon to.

They moved slowly against each other, Hisoka's head thrown back against the pillow while Bisky's lips mumbled incoherently against the skin of his neck. His hands gripped the soft material of her dress, snaking up the strong arms and lean shoulders before settling around her neck. He lifted her head until their lips were pressed against each other again, her thick blonde hair draped across his chest as she worked her tongue around his mouth.

There was a rhythm that lasted forever between them despite the fact that the act finished within minutes. Hisoka buried his hands in frazzled curls, moaned a woman's name while she grunted into his neck. He keened into sloppy kisses, pulled at her gorgeous dress, and squeezed her firm buttocks. He laid himself bare beneath her enormous form while sweating for an orgasm against a warm bed in a warm city.

She slipped out after he came. Hisoka lay prone on the bed. All that was left in the end was Hisoka's blissful smile and Bisky's grin while she took off the strap-on and finally pulled off her dress and undergarments. Hisoka marveled at the beautiful woman that would one day become his bride. He ignored the sting in his spine and rose so that he could clutch her breasts. Bisky moaned. He drank in her sounds while his tongue lapped at her pert nipples. He sucked and stroked her wet mound before she fell on her back and beckoned for him to take her.

And he did. He slid down the length of her body and reverently took her mound into his mouth. He sucked and stroked the folds of her skin with his tongue and fingers. She massaged his scalp and moaned his name. With every flick of his tongue, he felt his own skin burn with desire, and once he felt her nearing the edge, he rose and climbed on top of her.

He kissed her lips, tenderly nibbling her soft lips. He slipped gently in between her legs and moved slowly, as if holding a treasure in his arms. She sighed and moaned his name. Her arms brought him closer and he had half a mind to stay this way forever.

But she whined, urging him to move. He found himself smiling down at the most beautiful person he'd ever encountered in his life. After years of loving monsters, he's finally managed to find a human being. A part of him still missed Chrollo's patient smile and Machi's thoughtful remarks, but they were part of a past Hisoka had sworn never to return to. He had something more now. He had a future.

He pressed soft kisses to Bisky's eyebrows and she held his face in return. It was the closest they'd ever been. They barely knew each other, and yet, they knew everything about each other. He resumed his thrusts. He stared deep into her soul, requesting permission. For what, Hisoka didn't know. Maybe he was too damaged to realize that he'd fallen in love, or maybe his body finally realized that he wanted someone to treat him like a human being instead of a cum rag.

Bisky clutched the headboard, bucking her hips and begging for him to go faster. He slowed his pace instead and made her look into his eyes.

“Do you love me?” It was a genuine question. He knew she thought she loved him, but Hisoka didn't quite believe it.

Her face was a mask of sheer incredulity. “I'm gonna punch you, Clown,” she grunted, “hard.”

He stuck out his tongue. “Answer me or you can finish off with your tiny vibrator.”

“Y- _you_ ,” she sputtered. “Ugh!”

She bucked her hips and made him jostle. He grunted, feeling the heat rise in his stomach since he was still balls deep inside of her. “Beast,” he warned.

“Or what?” She smirked.

He sneered and pushed into her hard and fast. She keened and he quickened his pace, gripping her thighs and fucking her pussy raw. He smirked while he worked magic in between her legs, earning moan after moan. Towards the end, he dropped her thighs and grasped her heavy breasts, tweaking her nipples until she whined. His last few thrusts were hard and fast until he came deep inside of her. They'd never once used a condom, and he didn't suppose they ever would. One of these days, he'd tease her wantonness and she'd slap him and ride him into the sunset until he came inside of her again.

She looked like an angel after she'd finished cumming- an angel that had accepted his love. Coming down from her high, she looked as pretty as a wildflower. He kissed her lips and eased his flaccid cock out of her.

Their touches lingered even after they were done. He shifted to his side while she spooned him from behind. They fit together like two puzzle pieces. When he looked at the gold ring she'd slyly slipped onto his finger during their lovemaking, he wondered if he'd ever be as happy as he was right now. He figured, probably not. At least, not until they were married. That would happen soon. He sighed, content with what life had become. He'd found a new center in his world, a center where he had a home, a lover, and a son. It was the most cliched ending in the history of endings, but it was an ending Hisoka had lost blood and sleep over. This was _his_ ending.

A happy ending.

* * *

Fin

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy endings for everyone! Happy ending for Bisky! Happy ending for Hisoka! For Kalluto! For Kurapika! For Everyone! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
> 
> A great many thanks to everyone who stayed through to the end. This was an amazing nine weeks for me. I had an amazing time writing this, and I'm glad y'all had as much fun reading it as I did writing it. If y'all are interested in reading any more of my Hunter x Hunter work, I've joined this year's HxH Big Bang! I will be posting that fic in the coming months, and after that, I will be writing a short fic. Thank y'all, and have a wonderful day!


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